Database says 91,600 killed in Yemen fighting since 2015

Yemen's civil war has killed at least 91,600 people so far, a database tracking violence said Wednesday, presenting a new estimate after completing reporting for the first months of fighting in 2015.

The conflict began with the 2014 takeover over of northern and central Yemen by the Iranian-backed rebels, driving out the internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa.

Months later, in March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched its air campaign to prevent the rebels, known as Houthis, from overrunning the country's south.

FILE - In thos Oct. 8, 2016, file, photo, bodies of victims of a Saudi-led coalition airstrike are loaded in an ambulance, in Sanaa, Yemen. A database tracking violence said Wednesday, June 19, 2019 that at least 91,600 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, presenting a new estimate after completing reporting for the first months of fighting in 2015. (AP PhotoOsamah Abdulrhman, File)

In the relentless campaign, Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties and killed thousands of Yemeni civilians. The Houthis have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and have targeted vessels in the Red Sea.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, which has created what the United Nations says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, said that in 2015, about 17,100 people were reported killed — the second-most lethal year after 2018, which was the deadliest one on record.

FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2016 file photo, fire and smoke rise after a Saudi-led airstrike hit a site believed to be one of the largest weapons depots on the outskirts of Yemen's capital, Sanaa. A database tracking violence said Wednesday, June 19, 2019 that at least 91,600 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, presenting a new estimate after completing reporting for the first months of fighting in 2015. (AP PhotoHani Mohammed, File)

ACLED said 11,900 people were killed this year, compared to 30,800 in 2018.

The group said the Saudi-led coalition and its allies were responsible for more than 8,000 of about 11,700 deaths resulting from the direct targeting of civilians, while the Houthis and their allies were responsible for the rest.

The group said it recoded over 18,400 killed in the southwestern province of Taiz since 2015, placing Taiz as the most violent province in Yemen, largely due to a four-year siege by the Houthis, the group said.

FILE - In this April 28, 2018, file, photo, Houthi Shiite mourners chant slogans as they attend the funeral of Saleh al-Samad, a senior Houthi official who was killed by a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on April 19, in Sanaa, Yemen, Saturday, April 28, 2018. (AP PhotoHani Mohammed)

Hodeida and Jawf followed Taiz as the next most violent provinces in Yemen, with almost 10,000 in total combat fatalities, reported in each region since 2015, according the group.

ACLED said the U.N.-brokered cease-fire for the Red Sea port city of in Hodeida contributed to a partial drop in reported fatalities in recent months. That cease-fire has since crumbled.

"These data are both a tool and a warning: the international community must use them to help understand, monitor, and ultimately resolve the conflict before the situation spirals even further out of control," said ACLED executive director Clionadh Raleigh.

FILE - Shiite rebels known as Houthis bury a fellow Houthi, who was killed in a suicide bomb attack, during his funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015. An Islamic State-claimed suicide bomber and a subsequent car bombing killed at least 20 people Wednesday at a mosque in Yemen's rebel-held capital, Sanaa, amid the country's raging civil war, officials said. (AP PhotoHani Mohammed)

The numbers do not include those who have died in the humanitarian disasters caused by the war, particularly starvation.

The group, which receives funding in part from the U.S. State Department and Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, builds its database on news reports from Yemeni and international media and international agencies.

FILE - In this Aug. 12, 2018, file, photo, A child injured in a deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike on Thursday rests in a hospital in Saada, Yemen. A database tracking violence said Wednesday, June 19, 2019 that at least 91,600 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, presenting a new estimate after completing reporting for the first months of fighting in 2015. (AP PhotoHani Mohammed, File)

That coffee you slurped this morning? It’s 600,000 years old.

Using genes from coffee plants around the world, researchers built a family tree for the world's most popular type of coffee, known to scientists as Coffea arabica and to coffee lovers simply as “arabica.”

The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species.

“In other words, prior to any intervention from man,” said Victor Albert, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who co-led the study.

These wild coffee plants originated in Ethiopia but are thought to have been first roasted and brewed primarily in Yemen starting in the 1400s. In the 1600s, Indian monk Baba Budan is fabled to have smuggled seven raw coffee beans back to his homeland from Yemen, laying the foundation for coffee’s global takeover.

Arabica coffee, prized for its smooth and relatively sweet flavor, now makes up 60% - 70% of the global coffee market and is brewed by brands such as Starbucks, Tim Horton's and Dunkin'. The rest is robusta, a stronger and more bitter coffee made from one of arabica's parents, Coffea canephora.

To piece together arabica coffee’s past, researchers studied genomes of C. canephora, another parent called Coffea eugenioides, and more than 30 different arabica plants, including a sample from the 1700s — courtesy of the Natural History Museum in London — that Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus used to name the plant.

The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Genetics. Researchers from Nestlé, which owns several coffee brands, contributed to the study.

The arabica plant’s population fluctuated over thousands of years before humans began cultivating it, flourishing during warm, wet periods and suffering through dry ones. These lean times created so-called population bottlenecks, when only a small number of genetically similar plants survived.

Today, that renders arabica coffee plants more vulnerable to diseases like coffee leaf rust, which cause billions of dollars in losses every year. The researchers explored the makeup of one arabica variety that is resistant to coffee leaf rust, highlighting sections of its genetic code that could help protect the plant.

The study clarifies how arabica came to be and spotlights clues that could help safeguard the crop, said Fabian Echeverria, an adviser for the Center for Coffee Research and Education at Texas A&M University who was not involved with the research.

Exploring arabica’s past and present could yield insight into keeping coffee plants healthy – and coffee cups full – for future early mornings.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Mohammed Fita picks coffee beans on his farm Choche, near Jimma, 375 kilometers (234 miles) southwest of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday, Sept. 21 2002. Wild coffee plants originated in Ethiopia but are thought to have been primarily roasted and brewed in Yemen starting in the 1400s. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim, File)

FILE - Arabica coffee beans harvested the previous year are stored at a coffee plantation in Ciudad Vieja, Guatemala, on May 22, 2014. In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics on Monday, April 15, 2024, researchers estimate that Coffea arabica came to be from natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species over 600,000 years ago. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)