Category Archives: Yemen

Free samples

In this summer of no peace and abominable news, there’s one from Italy that has alienated me from the human race.
In short: in a video (unfortunately authentic), two women in white scrubs and later identified as a doctor – a GP- and a nurse, are seen showing boxes of a drug from an Israeli company, TEVA, crossing out the brand name, and then throwing the packages in the trash.
When the Local Health Authority forced the two women to publicly apologize, they stated: “We didn’t throw away real drugs; they were free samples, wipes, and a sodium and potassium supplement. After symbolically scribbling them down, we put them back.”

When I moved to Sanaa, during my first year, I spent my evenings at my boss’s pharmacy. It was a way to understand what was around me, learn Arabic and have a wider view on Yemen.
Attached to the pharmacy was what they called “the clinic,” nothing more than a battered room where first aid was provided, injections were administered, and a bit of everything was treated: malaria, dysentery, high fevers, bruises, cuts, swollen joints. Wounds were cleaned. Sometimes, for free. Often for free.

On the main counter of the pharmacy was a string with a pair of scissors attached. They were used to cut medicine blister packs because, basically, people could afford ONE aspirin, ONE Panadol, ONE ibuprofen, ONE suppository.

In some countries, there are no free samples; there are no wipes, sodium, and potassium supplements that can make a huge difference in a person’s life.
If we want to protest, we should always consider the greater good and how our protest fits the wider picture. I am afraid that throwing away – or pretending to – free samples lacks any sense and definitely will not help the Palestinian people. It might actually offend them. But also the Yemeni and all those people who are dealing with bombs, wars, lack of outlooks, people who sit in refugee camps with no clean water and no tomorrow.
All those whose lives have only received constant free samples of misery.

Taeko’s children of Yemen

A couple of years ago I discovered Taeko Kunishima‘s music. I played it on loop.
Taeko is a pianist, a composer a former child prodigy who started playing music at the age of seven, moved by the pillars of the classics – Beethoven and Mozart – and the transcendence of the notes.
Until she accidentally discovered Miles Davis on the radio, forever changing her trajectory.

Now Taeko plays her own jazz, a constant, perpetual ensemble of places and people, sounds and colours.
Taeko has travelled extensively in her life and her music does take you places, her music does make you feel: a borderless world where water, fire, wind, earth, people skirt and fuse into one another.
Playing Taeko, I often have a vision of sea rocks being splashed by dark waves on a rainy day and seaweed dancing just there: between the stone and water element.
Her tunes are intense and elegiac, light and airy. Taeko’s music is impalpable and real.

At the time, when I commenced playing her music, I was very much involved in a project on love in its broadest sense and tried my luck dropping Taeko a line, asking if she could talk to me about love. Perhaps, I suggested, love for her music, her native Japan or places she’d been to. Obviously, love for her art. Anything that moved her and meant love to her. I was interested in her talented soul and her relationship with love.

Taeko never questioned once who I was, if I had credentials. She knew my name, had my contact details, knew I cared about peace and human rights.
Candidly, out of the blue, she said: I can write music about love and Yemen.

I halted the project on love as life and all its unpredictable hiccups got in the way. Taeko, instead, kept her word.
One of my favourite artists did not turn her back on the obscenity of war.

She loved through music composing ‘Love and Peace‘ and the poem you hear is read by Jeremy Hawkins: a reflection on the inarticulate nature of war. Dedicated to the children living in Yemen.
Nothing less.

”Through the dust comes the sight of birds flying high
What do they know?
What do they think they can really see?
A call from a window.
A noise in a street.
But far echoes.
Through the roof comes the sight of flight’s lost might
What do they know?
How can they think none can really see?
A fall from a window.
A noise on a street.
Just far echoes.
Only dreaming of daylight, now sleeping, lives don’t torture them.
Now nearly starved, eating all apart from hope.
Through the loss comes a fight to make things right
All say they know.
None to say that death’s not like dreams
No longer a window
No longer a street
Just war’s echoes”


photo

our children

In Mareb, amidst a war that might have let go of the harshest moments but is still too alien from anything resembling peace.

In the Middle East, considered a cauldron of people who the West claims are ‘used to war’ (seriously?), in one of the most dramatic deserts where a powerful queen ruled over people, and maybe even the sun and the moon.

A queen so loved that her origins are claimed both in Africa and today’s Yemen and whose life you encounter in holy texts sacred to the Jews, Christians and Muslims.

To these two children who have witnessed much in such a brief time, I say: Your grandfather, when I moved to Ethiopia told me to be kind and respectful, always, but to never forget that Queen Sheba was Yemeni. ”You,”, he said: ”be polite, always say yes. But deep in your heart, you know that the Queen was Yemeni”.

I remember a writer once told me that in the eyes of Yemeni children he could see Queen Sheba and in Ethiopia I swore I saw the same.
In the meantime, if the war in Yemen has been silenced, the one in Ethiopia has been canceled from the news line.

I wonder what Queen Sheba thinks of how we treat her Ethiopian and Yemeni children (they are our children).

Save the Children recently found that some 85,000 children under 5 in Yemen may have died because of extreme hunger since the war began.
In Ethiopia, the war in Tigray and severe drought are putting at risk the lives of – at least – 3 million children.
But these figures stay there: in a press conference, on a press release, in an article. They never move on as numbers and statistics never halted wars, sieges, occupations and disputes.

Two years ago, the two children in the photo lost their father on a battlefield not far from home.
I remember the words of Polish poet Wisława Szymborska
Perhaps all fields are battlefields
those we remember
and those that are forgotten

The two boys were born and now live close to Mahram Bilqis” (“Sanctuary of the Queen of Sheba). Their life has been a battlefield.

A piercing book: ‘What Have You Left Behind’ by Bushra Al Maqtari

Most likely, there will never be a more perfect, dramatic, piercing book on the war in Yemen than What Have You Left Behind (Fitzcarraldo Editions) written by Yemeni researcher, writer, novelist Bushra Al Maqtari.

The introduction – painful yet without pity and hyperbolism – is a slap in the face: all the lies naively told in order not to accept that war was – with a perverse logic – inevitable, the signals no one wanted to pay attention to, the country abandoned by those who knew what was coming, a nation militarized to the limit and then attacked by the Coalition forces in 2015.

Bushra Al Maqtari’s Yemen (the book covers the period 2015-2017) is a country under siege, blockade (of cities and nation), run by the economy of the black market, the war profiteers (local and diasporic), where people can die of diseases, hunger, silence, homeless, father-and-mother-less, a country of orphans and survivors with no answers, no balm to their pain.
A country where the basics – water, electricity, food – are a vestige of the past.

It is a Yemen of imprisonment, torture, forced disappearances, air raids and shellings. The shelling from Yemenis to Yemenis, just of different factions.

Bushra Al Maqtari – who has more courage than a battalion of millions – interviewed over 400 people traveling at her own peril, listened to their stories, gathered some of their testimonies in a book compiled by those who have no one listen to their cry.

Children died while playing in the street, families were buried alive under missiles targeting their homes, bodies were never fully recovered (or recognised or put together one last time), fishing boats and huts targeted by Apache helicopters, even a boat from Somalia carrying fleeing Africans was attacked.
And aid organisations absent. Totally absent. Nonresponsive.
You read of people living in shops, in converted schools or skeletons of former government buildings. On the street.
Mutilated families and bodies of Taiz, Aden, Sanaa, Hodeydah, of villages. Areas difficult to place on the map, though the geography of war targets anyone with the most accurate precision.

What Have You Left Behind is a haunting read with no answers, no cure, no explanation, where the culprits come from all sides and it makes no difference: war crimes are war crimes. There is no such thing as fair and just killing or understandable, justifiable killing.
It is a book of victims whose pain runs so deep it alters humanity’s DNA.

A must read.

—————————–

Bushra al-Maqtari (بشرى المقطري; born 1979) is a Yemeni writer and activist who came to prominence as an anti-government protest leader in her hometown of Taiz during the 2011 Yemeni Revolution.

the bond

(You are)
just a few clouds away
behind dune sands
passed the leveled square tops of the region’s mountains
in the rhythm of the sun

(You are)
in each crescent moon
well
shade of palm trees
and tides of the Arabian Sea

(You are heard)
in the call for the prayer of every mosque
the bustling of the souqs
the opening of windows
shutting of gates
school yards, majlis, maternity wards
especially in the maternity wards
in the whispered words of devotion

(I dream)
the camel caravans bringing the tone of your laughter
the scent of your existence
the words you speak

(I rely)
on the moon, the sun, the rain, the winds, the people, the actions and deeds
to help us keep our bond

(to Yemen)


artwork Adel Al Maweri

”I paint my love for Yemen”, Wissam Al-Ansi

I will start my story from the end, because its beginning was beautiful and, somehow, beautiful stories become ordinary.
I am a visual artist; there are times I wish I never drew due to the many disappointments I constantly face.
My name is Wissam Al-Ansi from Yemen, Dhamar Governorate.
I was born in 1982.

I was an employee at the Education Office in my governorate until 2014; times were difficult already, then.  In 2015, when the war broke, salaries were cut and education and health system deteriorated.
The most painful part, though, was what the air-raids did to my children: they suffered in a way only those who have experienced war can relate to.

We held tight to the family, the area, the people. For over 2 years, we hoped and prayed but, at times, leaving your life behind is the only way to continue living. That life, in that context, was a death sentence, especially for my children. They are only children.

We sold everything in Yemen and we jumped into the unknown moving to Cairo (Egypt). It was June 2017.
Life in Egypt… Definitely, we enjoy security and peace, but living remains a difficult matter. I do not have a job or financial income, and the sale of paintings is very rare.
Occasionally I meet with a Yemeni friend, just one friend. Life of those who have fled a war is never smooth.

Since I moved to Cairo, I have never been idle: I participated in more than twenty exhibitions. It is my way of contributing to the world, through my art.
I held two personal exhibitions in Cairo on Yemen and Yemen’s heritage: there is so much beauty untold about my country. Covid, though, stopped all cultural activities. Before that, I had personal exhibitions at the French, Italian and German Cultural Centers.

Wissam Al Ansi portrays the life of everyday Yemen, with women play a central role in sustaining the family
Women always played a special role in Wassim Al Ansi’s art: their’s is the fabric of the family

Recently, I thought about making a portrait painting for the President of the Federal Republic of Germany and applied for approval to hold a personal exhibition on Yemeni heritage, but Covid, again, stepped in and I am still waiting for approval and better days.

Now I want to present a painting of a Yemeni woman with traditional clothes, to be sold at an auction:  50% of the amount goes to the benefit of poor families and widowed women who lost their husbands and sons because of the war. The other half would help me go by and allow me to sustain my father and mother who are suffering because of the war.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-4.png
The painting Wissam Al Ansi is selling, donating 50% of the proceeds to vulnerable widows and mothers who have lost their children



It is true that our life now is difficult, but the love for the homeland always prevails over everything.
My wish is to succeed in serving art and society, spreading the message of peace and tolerance, and preserving our heritage and civilization. I want to embrace the world with Yemen’s beauty, for all to see.
I can only paint what belongs to me: both land and people… my Beloved Yemen.



For further information on Wissam Al-Ansi’s work, on the auction, his dreams and what sustains him, please visit his facebook page
WhatsApp: 00201154294403
email: wesamelansy@gmail.com

My name is Gamela and I am looking for my family. An appeal to Yemen

The diaspora and stories of ordinary people who find themselves with little or no roots. A father disappearing and a woman looking for her past.
The time has come to help an English- Yemeni who is trying to sew the patches of her life, stretching from Sheffield area – England – to Aden, Southern Yemen

‘Mine is a long heartbreaking story.
My mum left me when I was three months old. It was my father, Yemeni, who actually brought us up.
When I was sixteen, my father said he was going to Yemen for a few months but he never returnt.
My step mum was here, in England with us, until she died.
I have a brother and a sister: they went the English way, I sticked to Islam instead.

I lost my youth and life feels very heavy.
My mum was English, definitely not a good mum.
We suffered a lot as children while my dad worked tirelessly in steel work. He was a hard worker and looked after us. We didn’t have much but we never suffered; it was as if he was balancing life for us.

When we were little, I remember him going to Yemen for holidays. 

On those occasions, he would put us in children’s homes until his return.
He always came back when we were little. I remember very few things. I know he had a lot of relatives here, but have lost contact. I have no pictures of him.

I can tell you I was born on January 16th 1965, my name is Gamela Zura Hashem (my middle name is after my father’s wife in Yemen), we used to live at 85 Shirland Lane, Attercliffe (Sheffield, England) and my father worked as a crane driver at Davy Roll.

My father’s name is Mohammed Hashem, at times they called him Al Aswad.
The family of my father had hotels in Southern Yemen, in Aden.

I understand I have little information, but will you help me find my father or his family?’


(The request was originally collected for the page of  Living In Yemen On The Edge   and the appeal goes both to England – Sheffield area, and Aden, Southern Yemen.
Gamela has virtually nothing from her past to accompany her)

Children’s Drawings from Yemen

Last February Melissa McCaig Wells, along with Curators Victoria Latysheva, Charlotte Hamson presented in New York TRUMPOMANIA, an international exhibition surrounding the topic of Donald Trump and the Republican administration in the US.
The exhibition ran in NYC March 1-5, in correlation with The Armory Show and Armory Arts Week, to a worldwide audience.
TRUMPOMANIA featured one artist from over thirty countries, each exhibiting one work illustrating their interpretation of the election of Trump creating a dialogue about what this presidency means to artists around the world and their illustration on how this will affect the future of all nations.

Melissa pushed the boundaries further and opened the doors of the exhibition also to the children of Yemen, affected by – at the time – 2 years of endless war (aggression by US-backed/Saudi led Coalition). Now it’s 970 days of war.
Not only Trump’s ban on Muslim countries included Yemen, but America’s inconsiderate arms sales to Saudi Arabia (110 billion USD) are part of the maiming and killing of thousands of children of Yemen.
Drone strikes have seen a sharp rise (over 100 in 2017 by the Trump administration) and without US logistical, technical (refueling of Coalition’s aircrafts bombing Yemen) and intelligence guiding, the Coalition would not have been able to cause such a level of destruction.

The situation on the ground between February and today has worsened beyond belief: the country is under lockdown, no aid enters while 20 million of Yemenis are dependent on aid; 50.000 children are expected to die by the end of the year of famine, curable diseases, cholera, diphtheria, meningitis or just because too weak to continue living.
Three cities (Saada, Hodeidah, Taiz) have no more access to safe water as the fuel is not entering the country and Sanaa, the Capital, will be next.
Cholera outbreak – of biblical proportions – will most likely affect 1 million people by the end of the new year, with over 2000 casualties officially recorded.

For TRUMPOMANIA, last January and February, we collected drawings from Yemeni children (who happen to be the only reason behind everything we have been doing for the past 970 days day) asking them if there was something they wanted to say, to add beyond the headlines or lack of media coverage.
Children spoke their language through drawings and scribblings and the results were appalling. Chronicles of daily scenes of massacres and warplanes, destruction, fire and blood.
The drawings here below (just a part of a large collection) were gathered for TRUMPOMANIA by two registered Yemeni NGOs: Human Needs Develooment – HND and Your Abilities Organization and, on World Children Day we leave it here. As a ‘j’accuse‘ for us all.

 

Omar Mohammed – 10 years old

 

1
Amasy Bushier Al-kenay Age: 11 Depicting the bombing of Faj Attan where an illegal bomb was dropped killing/injuring over 500

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

70
Alaa Mohiy Sharfaldeen

 

 

2
Name: Amar Jamal Hamdy, Age – 12 USA kills The Yemeni people

3
Hanan Alsdah, Age: 10 Describes buildings before and after the bombs

44
Heba Adel, Age: 12 – A girl cries, fearing bombs and warplanes sound

555
Roaa’ Dariss, Age 10 – A missile targeted a home and killed the family, and injured were seen out of the home

6666.png
Abdullah Zuhrah, Age 12 – The sky watching Yemen and crying with blood

o
Asra Adel, Age: 10 Destruction and bodies in the streets

77
Shihab Majdi, Age 9 – The missile took the house

 

g
Maddlaf Kamal, Age 9 – A mother crying for her kid killed by Saudis’ bomb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A young man in the making in times of war

To see a young boy, no more than seven or eight, crying because of the war, is something we will never get accustomed to.
Qasim Ali Al-Shawea – in the picture – of Your Abilities Yemeni NGO ( منظمة قدراتك للتنمية your.abilities.org ) writes:

”Every day I meet a child, family, displaced people during my work with my team and I have a close look at people’s unbearable conditions, how they try to stay safe, alive in such a humanitarian disaster. 
I see children sleeping at night with empty stomachs, after having fought hunger for several days.
I meet many families who have fled their homes to live hopeless, homeless in displacement camps; I am seeing a daily nightmare, a tragedy I have never seen…ever, in my life.
How not to mention the Cholera outbreak which is decimating lives while hospitals are full with patients. 
What is happening in Yemen is really inhuman, illegal and unfair. We are human beings and have human hearts, the world shouldn’t keep ignoring the children and women’s suffering. Every child deserves to live a better life.”

I asked Qasim why was the young boy shedding so helplessly and he replied:
”He told me that he and his family used to have a better life.  That was before bombs fell on their home. He was crying because his brother was killed there, at home, under a missile. Now they are living in a tent in a displacement camp. They have nothing to eat, monsoon rains enter the only abode they have. He wants clothes… he really asked me a lot: new clothes, toys, a chance to study. He is a clever child. I felt so sad for him and their life, the hard conditions they must cope with. Heartbreaking, really.”

The picture of a child, dressed like a man in the making, with a jacket which most likely will be worn until it fades to a shadow of a garment, crying helplessly cannot be the emblem of childhood. Not in 2017.
Yemen has been under air strikes, blocked by a siege, crippled by cholera and famine for over eight hundred and sixty days. A number so heavy it seems too long even to write. Impossibly long for a child whose home and past have been buried under a missile.

‘Why is the world looking away’? Gisela Hofmann on Yemen

Gisela Hofmann is a German friend who, literally, lives for Yemen. Throughout the years, she lived in the country, learnt Arabic and has become a peace advocate.
Gisela sent me a letter asking to publish it. It is her cry, the cry of a woman who has loved ones under constant bombs and castrated by a siege. Gisela cannot visit her ‘family in Sanaa’ and dreams of the day she will be reunited with them.
In the meantime, eight-hundred days have passed since that first bomb dropped on Yemen in the night of March 26 2015. The country has been totally destroyed, official figures estimate over ten thousand casualties, a child dead every ten minutes succumbing to preventable diseases, over fourteen million food insecure, three million internally displaced, a third cholera outbreak which has claimed lives of over six hundred people with a skyrocketing seventy thousand suspected cases.
Yemen has collapsed, Gisela dreams of peace and writes:

”For more than fifteen years, we have been personally associated with Yemen enjoying a close friendship with a family in Sanaa.
Throughout these years, we were able to stay with our friend-family twice a year, every year. We also lived for several months in Sanaa in a rented a flat.
Our visit in November 2014 would be the last for a long time. We did not suspect this at the time. Since then, we are only connected via internet, though this is not continuously possible for a variety of reasons but, basically, our friends have no electricity and have no money.

We are suffering, we feel helpless: we cannot do anything for our beloved family.
Since the beginning of  the Yemen-war and the suffering of the population, this country has been in the shadow of all other political “proxy wars”.
I would like to talk about my friends and family members, I want to describe their current life situation.
My heart is heavy when I think of them. Especially the children and my warm-hearted women-friends. I know how they feel, although I never hear complaints despite the very difficult situation. The humility and pride of these generous people does not allow it.
The following lines are dedicated to Mohammed, Latifa, and Safia and their families (how much I miss them):

“Why  is the world looking away?
I’d like to write  about the current life of the citizens in Yemen. I can report what I am constantly being told by my friends as, for myself, it is not possible in the current situation to return to Yemen: Sanaa airport is under  Saudi-led Coalition imposed blockade and it has also been partially destroyed by airstrikes..
The biggest problem posed by the siege is that for Yemenis there is no way to let vital relief supplies and aid be brought into the country.
If you run a finger on the map, throughout the whole country, you realise that the important main roads, transport routes and sea ports have been destroyed. This means that the urgent transport of aid and relief supply to the suffering people, to hospitals and distribution of safe, drinking water to villages is impossible or extremely difficult.
People outside the cities are abandoned and can depend exclusively on themselves.
Nobody looks, takes care of the population as military strategies are in the foreground. With few exceptions, there are no foreign embassies and/or diplomatic representatives in the country.
It is close to impossible for the  people of Yemen to  flee elsewhere. Even for families living abroad it is difficult to care for the loved ones gripped in the famine-cholera-aggression- torn homeland. Flights to and from Yemen are virtually close to zero and escaping to neighboring countries requires money which Yemenis do not have.

It is neighboring Saudi Arabia leading the war on Yemen. Since 26 March 2015, the Saudi led Coalition has kept Yemen under continuous military attacks.
Like in any given war, the simple, common people are those suffering the unthinkable.
Primarily children, sick people and the elderly.
The children of our friends-family have been out of school for months in a row out of fear of air-raids, or because schools were closed or teachers on strike having received no salary for over eight months.
A friend’s daughter contracted hepatitis caused by contaminated water. In order to receive immediate medical treatment, the family had to sell the last personal possessions. The treatment lasted longer than normal because the child was malnourished. Malnutrition maims the immune system of weakened children making them more prone to diseases.
The father of the little girl  had to donate his own blood to treat her and has, since then, been donating regularly to help others in need.The current situation allows many families to virtually just vegetate, exist, nothing else. A graceful life is no longer possible.
Schools, hospitals have shut down: government personnel have been out of salary for eight – nine months.
In the meantime, prices are soaring. A bottle of gas costs five times as much as compared to the beginning of 2015. Most people cannot afford it any longer: they use what they can to make a fire.
Speculation is rampant: some much-needed items must be bought exclusively in dollars cutting off most of the population.

There are those who have lost everything because of an airstrike: home and loved ones. Yemen is in a constant mourning.

The world is wrapped in silence, passively supporting these eight-hundred days of war crimes against the Yemeni population. Syria and Iraq have overshadowed the plight of Yemenis.
In spite of pain and suffering, there is life, though. There are tireless people, fighting with heart and intelligence for the future of Yemen. These people fight  with peaceful means vehemently against Yemen’s unjust, forgotten war.

A termination of the aggression is imperative. If I look at the situation of Yemen I feel anger along with an inexpressible sadness, because I see what  this country has become.

In the 1980s, at the time of  Ali Abdallah Saleh’s leadership, perhaps the country began slowly to open and move forwards. Yemenis saw progress in their own land and enjoyed international recognition.  After the Unification of South and North Yemen in 1990, a flourishing period began, starting from tourism. People from all parts of the world visited the long closed, untouched, historical country. Tourism became the largest employer of Yemen. Now even archaeological sites have fallen victim of indiscriminate air-raids, even towns and monuments protected by the UNESCO. Treasures of mankind have been lost, forever.

An immediate halt to the inconsiderate arms deals and sales to those aggressing Yemen, would represent a huge step towards the end of the war  on my second home. It would push the sides involved in the conflict to find solutions, involving only diplomatic means.
Had it happened before, many Yemeni children would still be alive and the homes of countless Yemenis would not be in rubbles.

Last February there was a defence and arms exhibition, ‘only’ 2500 km from Yemen. Weapons worth billions of dollars were sold while back in Yemen a nation was and is starving to death.
This forgotten country needs more attention. It is important tell to the world about the suffering of Yemenis who are at their limit. They cannot take it any longer.
The first article of our German basic law states: “Human dignity is untouchable”.
It should apply also to Yemenis. ”

Gisela Hofmann