children

Yemen update – 6th November 2015.

Posted on by jjudithbbrown

I would like particularly to dwell on the suffering of children in this ghastly war, as this week children are returning to school after an 8 month gap in their education since March.   When children stopped going to school because of the aerial bombardment, people thought it would be a short time until the war was over.  Now, 224 days later, they are still subject to a barrage of bombs, but people want to get on with their lives.  Education will still be difficult.  Many schools are destroyed or damaged, and in some areas the remaining intact schools are so far away that it will not be possible to send children to school, such as in Saada governate. Most schools do not have electricity or water, and also lack basic equipment such as paper because of the blockade.  So despite the fact that the pace of the war has not diminished and the blockade stops educational equipment from arriving, the people of Yemen do not want their children to be a lost generation and they have decided that they must go to school, whatever happens. This will not be easy, as bombs can still be heard day and night, and many children are suffering from stress because of it.  But congratulations, mabruk Yemen, on getting your schools up and running. And what courage those teachers must have.

photos 6.11.15 012

photos 6.11.15 015

Children’s lives are affected in many different ways in this war. The blockade has meant that petrol cannot be imported, and hence water cannot be pumped from aquifers.  I had water delivered direct to my home from the water authorities when I lived in Yemen, but this is a thing of the past now.  People collect water from tankers, using plastic cartons, limiting them to 5 litres a day per person – for all tasks, drinking, washing, cooking, and laundering clothes. The severe shortage of clean water has caused high rates of water borne diseases, such as diarrhoea.  The figures are shocking – half a million children at risk of severe malnutrition, and over 100,000 treated for severe malnutrition. I cannot find any figures for deaths due to malnutrition, but as hospitals have been destroyed, equipment and medicines cannot reach Yemen due to the blockade; my guess is that the death rate is high.

There is also the issue of child soldiers. They do not fight in armies as far as I know, but they do fight with militias; the Houthis have been accused by the Saudi-led coalition, but my guess is that they are fighting with other militias too. They are not forced to fight; they want to do so. The constant bombs in the north – over 40,000 have been dropped in 7.5 months – which destroy civilian homes and infrastructure – has made many in the population feel that the Saudi coalition is conducting a foreign invasion and it is their duty to fight.  Particularly in the Saada province, which has suffered wars since 2004, many schools have been destroyed and many children cannot get to school. These children work in subsidence farms or sell items in the roads to passing drivers – a mini business – and many of them are illiterate.  It is not surprising that adolescents decide to fight, as it gives them a moment of glory that they will not otherwise experience in their dreary lives.  This is not to excuse child soldiers, but it is to explain it.

And last of all, so many children have been killed in this dreadful war. Nearly 50% of the population were under 18 in Yemen; it had one of the highest fertility rates in the world. So inevitably, there are many children killed when bombs fall in civilian areas – which is caused by militias, armies, and air bombardment.

CYCLONE CHAPALA.

cyclone chapala2
Cyclone Chapala

As well as a ferocious ground war and an inhumane aerial assault, nature also seems to have decided to attack Yemen, this time Hadramaut, Mukalla and the Island of Soqatra, the areas so far not directly affected by war. Again, it seems that Yemen is not worthy of top slot in the news reports in UK as the news did not hit the headlines. But the cyclone has been reported in a low key manner in some media outlets.  The cyclone is an extremely rare occurrence, the first time in over 40 years.  Waves were reported as over 10 metres, winds were recorded as 140mph and over 10 years’ worth of rain fell in two days.  Many of the houses in this region are made of mud bricks, and there has been devastation of housing stock, I have been told more homes destroyed in Mukalla than in Aden, where 50% of housing stock was destroyed in the ground war there.  There was a surprisingly low death rate – just 8 deaths – as the population moved inland.  In Soqatra, used to batterings from high winds and with a good system in place for evacuation, 400 homes were destroyed.

cyclone chapala4
Devastation in Mukalla caused by Cyclone Chapala

In Soqatra, already Oman and UAE have offered assistance. It is not so easy in the mainland, because the worst hit town, Mukalla, in under the control of Al Qaeda militias, as are many areas along the southeast coast. This will make overseas relief agencies unwilling to assist because of the high risk to any workers or volunteers going there.

GROUND WAR.

In the rest of Yemen, the weather has not halted the war. The ground war, with Islah mililtias against the Houthi-Saleh alliance continues in Taiz; I have regular photos of gruesome corpses burned after missiles were aimed into civilian areas. I heard news that weapons have been dropped to areas of Taiz held by Islah militias by the Saudi-led coalition; one such plane was reported as destroyed by missiles. The Taiz population have been supporters of Islah for some time, and most have a strong anti-Houthi stance.  Hence there have been photos this week of many within the population carrying munitions through mountain roads to reach militias; carried by hand or on donkeys.  It has also been reported that troops from the Saudi-led coalition have reached the outskirts of Taiz city.

And yes, the people of Taiz call the Houthis ‘terrorists’, and the bit of the army still loyal to Hadi (there are reputed to be 10,000 newly trained Yemeni soldiers) they call ‘the legitimate army’.  Those that support the Saleh/Houthi alliance call the army loyal to Saleh as the ‘Yemen army’ and the militias fighting them as ‘terrorists’.  It will take a long time for Yemeni people to put these passions behind them, and move towards peaceful coexistence.

AERIAL ASSAULT.

There have been many reports of the continued air assaults, many of them targeting civilian homes, and with many civilian casualties. After seven and a half months, it is almost not news, I seem to say the same thing every week and I am fearful that some are finding this ‘news’ repetitive. For example, I was told two days ago, that there had been 120 bombs dropped on north Yemen in 24 hours.  A village south of Sanaa was destroyed by 3 missiles – the second and third a few minutes after the first, called ‘double tap’ – to kill the rescuers.   I don’t think that in any previous war there has been such non-stop bombing for so long, with some areas such as Saada still having had bomb attacks every day.  I even saw pictures of a lorry full of bee hives destroyed today.  They must be running out of targets.  In Sanaa, there was a big protest against the war and the blockade this week.

demonstration against the war and blockade in Sanaa
Demonstration against the war and blockade this week

RUSSIAN PLANE.

An item that was reported in Sanaa over the last couple of days is the appearance of a Russian plane, which landed directly in Sanaa airport, rather than going to Djibouti to have its cargo checked. The mystery is how this actually happened, with Saudi controlling airspace.  After the plane landed and 20 tons of humanitarian aid delivered, it was blocked from leaving the airport by Saudi Arabia, but happily it is on its way back to Russia now, the Saudis and Russians reaching agreement, presumably.

PEACE TALKS.

The UN has announced that the peace talks are still going to happen, and they have named the date as th 15th November.  My thoughts are that Saudi Arabia hopes that it will have recaptured Taiz at this point, and they are making noises that sound as if they are expecting the war to end.  That won’t mean peace for many years.  The polarisation of Yemenis and issues such as the growth of Al Qaeda and the secessionist movement in the old South Yemen means that there are plenty of internal battles that are likely to keep festering. But it would be a start on  the long road to peace if the Houthi/Saleh alliance could reach some sort of agreement with the Saudi-led coalition and Hadi.   On that positive note, I will end this week’s update.

Letter from Yemeni citizen to Ban Ki-Moon

Posted on by jjudithbbrown

This letter needs to be widely circulated.  Please can you send a copy to newspapers – if enough copies are sent it will create a media storm and make editors think again of their policies of silence on the war on Yemen.

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of United Nations
United Nations Headquarters
760 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017, US

Re: Stop the Saudi aggression

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Months have passed since the beginning of the coalition aggression on the Yemenis people led by the Saudi government and its allies with complete disregard to the lives of Yemenis and their wellbeing. The fatalities has passed the thousands mark, uncountable casualties, disastrous cities and towns with no sign for this aggression to halt.
The military alliance lead by the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia has vowed to directly punish the Yemenis people by targeting their public sector such as Airports, sea ports, highways, food factories, schools and even hospitals. The so called collateral damages has become a common tone used by the coalition whenever a human loss was a direct result of their actions.
Al-Sabeen Maternity and Children’s Hospital, a key Yemeni hospital was on the brink of closure as airstrikes intensify on Sana’a according to Save the Children report on the 31 August 2015 (https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/…/key-yemen-hospital-bri…’), was once again directly hit few days later after that report on Saturday the 5th of September 2015 and buildings nearby had been leveled as explosions rang through the night and morning. At least 27 members of two families were killed and tens of casualties in critical conditions. The manager of Al-Sabeen Maternity and Children’s Hospital said it had been severely damaged and on the verge of collapse with its neonatal intensive care unit suffering the most from shortages of medical supplies and staff. The hospital has also appealed to the international organization to help evacuate the remaining patients as its Deputy Manager, Halel Al-Bahri, said three infant aged less than 10 days old and two aged three weeks old were among the fatalities as a result of the coalition aggression and that an urgent intervention is needed to stop this aggression.

The deafening silence of the international communities is unprecedented and the complete absence of regards to Yemenis lives by the wider community is unreal. Here in Yemen, babies are robbed from the warmth of their parents, the sound of human voice whispering, singing, and humming softly as they laid down to sleep. The happiness these babies have once brought to this nation are now converted to grieving parents and shocked country as they daily lying down their beloved ones on their final journey.
While human lives are equally valued, whether it is in Asia, Africa or Europe, a boy drowned off the shores of Europe or a baby aged three days old dying in his incubators in Yemen, many Yemenis around the world are deeply concerned about their beloved home and all have great concern about this unjust world.
Many Yemenis have come together to urge you and request an urgent involvement to lend a helping hand to the hospitals and medical staff and to stop the deterioration of living conditions in Yemen and to bring to justices the parties and individual responsible for all types of hostilities aggressions
Thank you so much for your precious time and for allowing us to bring to your attention our deep desire to see Yemen as a free nation, respected and uphold its values of human rights and dignity.

(from a Yemeni citizen).

Saudis Above, Houthis below, nowhere is safe.

Posted on by jjudithbbrown

Children trapped in war

SANAA, Yemen — In the early hours of June 13, the Amari family was asleep in their home in Beit Meyad, a district near the heart of Sanaa. Then the bombs came. At least four missiles struck their street in quick succession at around 2 a.m.

A nearby shop selling gas cylinders was hit; there was fire everywhere. The family scrambled to flee their house. They were almost outside when an explosion blew the building’s main gate off its hinges, ramming into four of them and sending them flying backward into the house.

Four siblings were killed instantly: 11-year-old Iyad, 18-year-old Abdel Qader, 22-year-old Mona, and 25-year-old Aisha. Their cousin, Ahmed al-Amari, who lived next door, was also killed by the blasts. He was 10 years old.

“They were torn apart. We buried pieces of them,” said Boshra al-Amari, an aunt to the victims. She lives two streets away and huddled with her three sons in her home that day as the missiles rained down.

The four siblings who were killed are survived by an 18-year-old brother and a 20-year-old sister, who is now in shock and unable to speak. The mother of their dead cousin suffered only a broken arm, but she is in a state of hysteria. She believes the children were injured but are still alive. Fearing for her psychological state, Boshra has not had the heart to tell her they are all dead.

The attack also killed five members of the Akwaa family, who lived next door, including three children, bringing the death toll to at least 10, all of them civilians and five of them children. Up to 60 people were also wounded in the strike.

Beit Meyad is a residential district, but the presumed reason for the strike is that enemies of Saudi Arabia lived in the area.

On March 26, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries began bombing Yemen to stop the advance of a rebel group known as the Houthis who took over the capital in September and continued their march southward, seizing control of large parts of the country.

Saudi planes have bombed sites across Yemen on an almost daily basis for nearly three months, backed by logistical and intelligence support from the United States. In addition to military targets and weapons depots, the airstrikes have hit the airports in Aden and Sanaa, where two destroyed commercial airplanes still lie on the tarmac; a refugee camp the northern district of Haradh; and several UNESCO-protected heritage sites, including most recently at least five houses in Sanaa’s 2,500 year-old Old City.

In addition to the airstrikes, fierce street battles have broken out in Aden, Taiz, and elsewhere between the Houthis, who are allied with forces loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is in exile and other opponents. More than 2,500 people have been killed in the conflict and over 11,000 injured, according to the World Health Organization.

Since the beginning of June, analysts and residents in the capital say, the bombing campaign has entered a new phase:

Planes have begun targeting the homes of Saudi Arabia’s enemies, rather than just military targets.

Planes have begun targeting the homes of Saudi Arabia’s enemies, rather than just military targets. Civilians have found themselves increasingly caught in the crossfire.

The street where the Amari family lived was home to the residences of Saleh’s nephew and his brothers. They weren’t home at the time. Earlier this month, the house of Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali, was bombed, as was his office, which is located near a popular Internet cafe in Sanaa. On Sunday night, June 14, the home of a close Houthi ally in the Faj Attan area of Sanaa was also bombarded.

“They are trying to terrorize and punish their opponents,” said Maged al-Madhaji, a Sanaa-based political researcher, adding that Saleh’s allies do not sleep in their homes anymore. “It’s an idiotic strategy and it’s a sign of their failure. They don’t know what to do. They can’t win this war from the air.”

The Saudi-led air campaign is far from the only danger Sanaa civilians like the Amari family face. Boshra said the night after her relatives were killed, a shell from an anti-aircraft weapon fired by the Houthis hit her roof and another landed in her yard. “Their sound is terrifying,” she said. “We get some kind of shrapnel from them hitting our house almost every day.”

The rapid booms of anti-aircraft fire fill the sky in Sanaa whenever the roar of a passing warplane is heard — and sometimes even when it isn’t.

Dr. Nasr al-Qadasi, the head of the Goumhouri hospital in Sanaa, Yemen’s second-biggest hospital, said he receives three to five patients a day who have been wounded by anti-aircraft munitions. “They shoot randomly and without purpose,” Qadasi said. “I am more afraid of the anti-aircraft fire than of the missiles.” In a report in May, Amnesty International found that anti-aircraft munitions shot by the Houthis “were the leading cause of casualties in the capital.”

Meanwhile, Boshra is at a loss of what to do as her family members, like so many Yemeni civilians, are trapped in the fighting.

In addition to the five family members she lost two days ago in a Saudi airstrike, her 80-year-old aunt died in the town of al-Jalilah, some 90 miles northwest of the capital, after being wounded as a result of shelling by Houthi-allied forces; the aunt was unable to reach a hospital for a month due to the fighting and finally succumbed to her injuries. In Aden, Boshra’s cousin’s husband, who is mentally ill, was shot by snipers as he was walking in the street. And a relative of her brother-in-law, a pharmacist, was kidnapped by Houthis in Sanaa last week.

“I don’t see this ending,” Boshra said with tears in her eyes. “I think things will get much worse.”

She lost her job as a reporter after the Houthis closed down the newspaper where she worked. Her husband has not received a government salary in three months. They now rely on a relative living in the United States who sends them money. She wants to leave Yemen, but with the borders closed and hardly any outbound flights from Sanaa, she remains trapped inside.

“There is nowhere safe,” she said. “I want to protect my children but everywhere is targeted. I don’t know how to protect them.”