 |
| Depicting the slight of hope for Yemen, by Yemeni cartoonist, Rashad Al Same'i. |
From where to begin. My head has been spinning around as the situation in Yemen, for my family, friends and all, has been worsening beyond anyone's imagination.
Before this War, if you have asked anyone who lived in Yemen for only 24 hours would have told you how life is extremely difficult in the country. Today's War is absolutely making an enormous destruction – as if War can happen to be fair.
My silence for the past week is because I couldn't handle the news, I couldn't blog because the conflict is very complex; it's basically a civil war and regional war combined. The amount of misleading information and fabrication by all sides is beyond my blogging skills. Instigating violence, hatred, antagonism, divisions are among the many ways the media is dealing with the War in Yemen currently. Truth is definitely lost at this stage. One thing is certain, though, that is Yemen is midst a humanitarian catastrophe.
Nearly 100 civilians have been killed and 364 wounded in around five Yemeni cities in the past week, and the death toll is on the rise. More children have died in the last week because of bombings and street fighting than in the whole of 2014. Around 4916 Yemeni citizens stranded at international airports since the beginning of the Saudi-led air strikes. More than two dozen people in al-Mazraq camp were killed in an apparent air strike by the Saudi-led coalition. More than 550 injured received by the Doctors Without Borders since the clashes started in Aden on March 19. The armed clashes are expanding –foreign troops reportedly arrive to Aden today– and the death toll is rising as I write this post. The humanitarian situation is worsening day after day and the water scarcity is its forgotten conflict; half of Yemen's population, 13 million, struggle daily to find or buy enough clean water to drink or grow food.
I detest the War and violence – who doesn't? the Saudi-led air strikes are an aggression by all means which all Yemen's politicians take responsibility for, as well. Current aggression is a continuation of the Houthi-Saleh's coalition's aggression which began in 21st of September last year, when they carried out a coup against Hadi's regime. That must be said not to justify today's violence but rather to put things into its context. Moreover, the conflict is not Yemen vs. Saudi & Arab States, it's rather all of them against Yemeni people who are being suffocated, bombarded, attacked, killed inside the country, & who are outside the country displaced and stranded at airports and heartbroken for their loved ones inside Yemen.
The War was inevitable considering how our bastard politicians underestimated peace and stability for their own people.
I fear that the War will prolong for awhile and I see that only a miracle can save us from the Syrian, Libyan & Iraqi scenario.
While I pray for all Yemenis to be safe, I pray for an immediate political resolution done by a third party, wise, responsible mediator.
