Feature: 3-year war weakens Yemenis' resilience to hardships

by Murad Abdu

ADEN, Yemen, March 25 (Xinhua) -- The three-year long civil war and ongoing military intervention have not only caused destruction to Yemen's infrastructure but made people less resilient to face hardships in life than any time before.

Yemeni families feel more helpless and unable to encounter the widespread poverty and adversities created by the ongoing conflict that started in 2015.

A shockingly large number of children were deprived from education after losing their fathers, mothers and brothers, or the breadwinner in the families during the internal military conflict in Yemen. They have no option except to go out and look for physical labor to gain money and buy basic foodstuffs.

In the southern port city of Aden, where the internationally-backed Yemeni government is based, a number of destitute children who were displaced from other northern provinces work to sell second-hand items and clothes on the streets.

Looking worn out, 13 year-old Obeid Ahmed, who fled the neighboring province of Taiz after losing his house during shelling by Houthi rebels, is working for survival by standing on the street side and trying hardly to sell his miscellaneous items for car drivers in Aden's neighborhood of KhorMaksar.

"Houthis invaded Taiz and their shells destroyed our small house. My father who was a teacher died along with my brother in the shelling. Now, I am trying to work by selling things on the streets," said Ahmed, blaming the local and international humanitarian organizations for having done nothing to support him.

Rashad Mustafa, who is from the central province of al-Bayda to live in Aden, is selling chewing gum and washing windshields, said that he barely gain money to buy medicine for his injured mother.

"I have to work hard despite the hot weather in Aden to gain money. My mother needs medicine because she injured in a roadside bomb blast," said Rashad, hoping to come back to his village and see his friends.

"Life became more difficult and three years of suffering is enough because we can't endure more. We are lost and have no future. Enough war ... Enough destruction," Rashad added.

Scores of economically impoverished families escaped from war-torn areas to government-controlled provinces are facing dire challenges and receive no tangible humanitarian support from the organizations, said a humanitarian officer who asked to remain anonymous.

"Most of the Yemeni people are going through harsh humanitarian conditions and the only solution for this catastrophe is ending the war. Humanitarian aids are not adequate," the officer said.

As for Um Belal Khaled, a 50-year-old woman displaced from the Red Sea coast city of Mocha to Aden, she told Xinhua that this is her second year in displacement and suffering.

She was widowed two years ago when a Saudi-led airstrike hit mistakenly against a civilian vehicle, killing her husband who was traveling overnight alone.

"No one knows what the fate of our country will be but I call our countrymen and decision-makers to reconcile and accept each other. It's time to rebuild our country," said Um Belal.

In the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa and other northern provinces, people live in very bad conditions amid different crises such as severe shortage of cooking gas and the spread of diseases.

Residents said many families in Sanaa started using firewood and coal to cook their daily meals instead of gas, which has been monopolized by Houthi authorities for political reasons.

Citizens in Sanaa also blamed the Houthis who are controlling the city's affairs and occupying government ministries including the oil companies since September 2014.

The Houthi rebels government urge people to march to the streets of Sanaa on Monday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.

The pro-Houthi demonstrations will express the group's strong disapproval and rejection to the inactive of international community and weapon-selling from the United States to Saudi Arabia.

Some other residents said the Houthi militia threatened to use force and arresting campaigns against those who will not participate in the demonstration against the Saudi-led coalition.

"We are forced to go out tomorrow to support the Houthis by attending demonstrations. No one can stay at home because Houthis will come to pick you out. To be honest, people are fed up with Houthis but they have no solution," a Sanaa-based resident said anonymously.

After three years of conflict and destruction, observers say that the Yemeni rivals are still insisting on solving the country's crisis by force, with no political solution in sight.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war for three years after the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels who overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces including Sanaa in late 2014.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military coalition since March 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthis forced him into exile.

The war has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, half of them civilians, and displaced over 3 million others, according to UN humanitarian agencies.

The ongoing war has hit a stalemate, creating the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and pushing the country into the brink of famine, with an estimated 385,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition, thus putting them at heightened risk of acute watery diarrhea and cholera, according to the UN agencies. Enditem