Yemen: Caring for Families Who Fled the Outbreak of Violence

Journey  |  Zviad Sisauri, Dec-Feb 2010

[Witness stories are considered biased viewpoints. If you would like to counter or clarify the argument, please write to the editors. Only well-written and well-argued stories or comments will be considered for publication.]

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Yemeni families escaping the violence in the north arrive without belongings, literally nothing but the clothes they have on them. They are strangers in the area, so the local host community, tribes, and authorities are not very keen having them there. Land in countries such as Yemen with tribal society is a very sensitive matter, so finding a place to settle newly-arrived people is not an easy task, even if the government is willing to allocate land for a camp. Until we are able to find solutions, people stay in the open, squat in the schools and outside the camps. Very few have relatives or friends where they’ve arrived. Some are renting rooms using the last savings they have which is going to run out shortly.

[Continued below]

Photo: Sanaa, Yemen, Martin Sojka.

Yemen’s war in the northern Sa'ada region has gone on and off for a few years, so I was following developments from the distance. In August, I heard about the rapid escalation of violence from one of the daily electronic news updates that I subscribe to on the internet. It said that the government was fighting against a secessionist group called the Al Houthis, a Shia-Zaidi Islamic sect. [See the International Crisis Group, for a formal look at the politics of the conflict.]

It’s easy to find a widely-accepted term like Shia and use a label or stereotype rather than learn the details of a very complex issue. This conflict has little to do with competition between the Shia and Sunni. In the beginning, I thought it was a Yemeni version of Sri Lanka’s operation against Tamils, or Georgia’s attempt against Ossetia. But once on the ground I quickly learned it was different. 

When I came here I was of course brainwashed by the mass media and popular versions of Yemen’s story of the conflict. Shia versus Sunni, Iran versus Saudi Arabia, tribalism, et cetera. From other conflicts I knew that there is a macro and PR version of the conflict and there is a micro one too - the devil is in the detail. Through friends I made here, Yemenis and foreigners, especially those who are not associated with humanitarian world, I learned how the local community sees the conflict.

According to those I spoke with, the conflict is about the monetary interests of different political factions, many tribes siding with either one or another political party, often changing positions and affiliations, depending on gains and losses. Power struggles between prominent individuals and politicians also impact the nature of the conflict. Saudi support to the Yemeni government probably further fuels this.

The Houthi rebels are getting world-wide recognition. The Saudis are establishing a ten kilometer buffer zone inside Yemeni territory. The Yemeni government is funded by the Saudis to run the war. Who would be interested in stopping it?

Refugee Work

My first traumatic experience with violence and the real threat to life was on the 9^th of April, 1989, when peaceful demonstrators in my native Tbilisi, Georgia, were killed, stabbed with spades and gassed by the Russian troops in front of the government palace on the main avenue of the city, not far from where we lived. It happened at night when we youngsters had already gone to sleep after hanging out at the demonstration where people sang and danced demanding independence of Georgia.

The violence in Georgia got worse from 1991-1992 during the Georgian, Abkhazian, and Ossetian civil wars—three conflicts inside the borders of Georgia. There was fighting going on in Tbilisi between the factions and militia, first a coup, then criminal gangs and authorities took charge of the country. Tens of thousands of displaced families arrived in a short period of time to the city where I lived.

They had horrible and terrifying stories about abuses by all parties, the Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Chechens, and Russians. My family and friends knew some of the displaced people personally. Georgia is a very closed community where everyone knows everyone, and many Georgians had spent summer holidays in Abkhazia where now one of the biggest battles was going on.

Every citizen of the Soviet Union probably heard about war for the first time after their first teacher on their first day of school said good morning and reminded them of the great heroes of the Second World War. In Georgia, kids may have heard about war even earlier when their grandfathers held them up in one hand for the first time and with their second hand raised a horn full of wine and made a toast: “You will grow up in the honor of your great warrior ancestors and heroes of the wars and battles! Cheers.”

My family is from Tbilisi, in those times the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Tbilisi is different in that it is, well, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, full of humor, socializing and party-oriented, and with beautiful alpine and castle scenery. Before I identify myself as Georgian, I probably feel more comfortable identifying myself as Tbilisian—whatever that means.

In the 1990s, I joined one of the UN organizations as an assistant, mostly for the stable monthly salary. I was lucky to have participated in an interesting project there, which triggered my further curiosity in the UN system and international law. Later I worked as an assistant on internal displacement issues with people from Georgia’s Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.

My first experience with refugees, in legal terms, was in 1999 when Chechens fled to Georgia during the Second Chechen War. By then I was more equipped with knowledge and skilled in terms of understanding protection, humanitarian response, international obligations, etc. I was assigned to participate in the response to this emergency: I saw it coming then I saw it actually starting, developing, evolving and eventually dying out. As I saw all stages and functions of refugee protection emergency response, I found it adventurous and challenging. Eventually, I worked in Georgia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tanzania, Jordan, and now in Yemen.

One refugee story I like in particular came from a colleague in the resettlement unit who interviewed a refugee for potential relocation to a third country. During a review of the case and photo she noticed that the applicant, the refugee elderly lady had a very big nose with peculiar shape. She remembered that she had seen similar nose somewhere else. She was convinced that she had interviewed someone earlier with exact same type and size of nose. So she went back to the files and found it: there she was another resettlement applicant, a refugee elderly lady who looks very alike the other lady with the big nose she had interviewed recently.

After careful verification of the case files, additional individual interviews with both applicants separately it was revealed that they were twin sisters who lost each other back in the forties, when their parents died and one sister was taken by uncle abroad and another one stayed with the aunts. Somehow they lost trace and contact, but both new about existence of another – they were six years when they were separated. Reunification was very emotional.  

In any emergency operations you meet diverse people: energetic and lazy, committed and careless, hard working and slackers, boring and interesting, snobs and simple. In any emergency you always find a small group of nice, dedicated and fun people that you end up hanging out with most of the time, Yemen was no exception to this. People come on emergency with different purpose, for excitement, adrenaline, humanitarian cause, experience, knowledge, for fame, etc. They all bring with them different cultures, experiences and knowledge and, importantly, loads of digital music that people share and exchange.

Dynamic, committed and hard working people, those who enjoy their work in emergencies tend to gang together, away from snobs and boring bureaucrats. In the evenings and social life everyone talks about the job, non-stop, suggesting ideas, new ways of doing things and of course complaining a lot about those who do not do their job well, or do not care. Sometimes such people are referred to as “ticks” and we love talking about them, maybe to tell ourselves how good we are. It is very comforting when you find like-minded people and it helps one to cope with pressure and stress on a daily basis.

It’s not easy to find alcohol in Yemen, nor there are any bars or pubs, except for two five-star hotels and a Russian club, so we hang out mostly at each other’s places listening to music and sipping gin, whiskey, or vodka all the same, probably because of their “good” quality. What do you expect from booze supplied by a taxi driver from black market.

Sometimes it can be very frustrating when upon deployment we end up spending most of our time at meetings, reading, replying and screening emails, rarely able to visit the sites and talk to the people. Staff based near the camps and in the field have this luxury on a daily basis and they, of course, always have a bit different perspective on the situation than people working the capital. Reconciling these two is always a tense process, but with the right people, debates, and discussions, even if they are tense, are rewarding and interesting.

The most painstaking exercise is collecting and verifying lists for distribution, assistance, and services. Making sure that you do not miss anyone who needs help or someone is not in need does not appear in the list. Then of course comes the stage of “chasing” partners and their staff to do distributions on time, in a write way, with respect, etc – what is really infuriating is that when other staff and colleagues do not share your sense of urgency and they kind of take it easy, causing irritation, anger and sense of uselessness.

The Aid Worker Life in Yemen

Just before leaving for Yemen’s capitol, Sana’a, I called up friends who worked in Yemen, so I got the basics on how to get around, security, operations, social life and how to find booze in Sana’a. Printed material on Yemen from the internet helped me to kill time in the nosy Tbilisi- Istanbul flight, as well as in the all-too-well-known Istanbul airport where I was re-routed to fly to Sana’a via Amman, rather than straight to Sana’a.

I expected to work 24/7 so I knew I would have little time to get to know the city of Sana’a, Yemeni life, or the people. The first three weeks I saw nothing of Sana’a but my office, a rented flat, and the offices of the UN, NGOs, and the government. I expected Yemen to be more “Gulf Arab,” but I found it more relaxed and simple with easy-going people who love to socialize with strangers.

I found a nice, open-minded, fun group of Yemeni friends and people from eight other countries. How did I find them, well, “All roads lead to Rome.” I had to find someone who also couldn’t survive without a pint of cold beer on the weekends, not usually difficult among humanitarian aid workers. I did try to socialize through khat, a narcotic leaf chew which is very popular in Yemen, but chewing like a camel for four or five hours, mumbling, and struggling to drink or smoke with a chew the size of tennis ball just for a strong coffee-like buzz didn’t appeal to me.

The initial assistance humanitarian aid agencies offer includes tents, jerry cans, blankets, mattresses, kitchen sets, hygiene items, health services, provision of clean water, and more. It’s very important not only for life-saving purposes, but also to reassure people and build trust. Of course with the usual bureaucracy in the UN and NGOs, the government and donors, politics, et cetera, things do not work as efficiently as they should, so the distributions are sometimes delayed along with the registration process.

The government took a long time allocating land. The primary one it allocated in Amran, Khaiwan, is not safe or secure at all. Rockets from the fighting land in the camp occasionally. There are armed people all around it. An unusual case is the second camp which was built and developed by the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) in Hajjah just next to the camp managed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Islamic Relief-Yemen.

The ERC camp was developed without any coordination or collaboration with any other humanitarian actor in the country, and with completely different standards and set up. Some call it five-star camp. The camp rules are very restrictive, selective and don’t allow people to keep livestock, cook, or have visitors. Instead, hot meals are cooked three times a day and people have to queue up, there are water dispensing machines in the camp roads, flat screen TVs, and air conditioned management tents. etc. While we have an overcrowded primary camp, which is at double capacity, still not many want to move from that first camp to the new five-star camp, which is half empty. I do not think that the UN took a firm stance with the government on some issues, or with the ERC, especially on the above two issues.  Health services and assistance has been falling behind, too. The needs in this area are immense.

The displaced people, witnesses to the fighting, that I spoke with were mostly those who managed to flee in to the northern district of Baqim and then crossed in to Saudi Arabia. They were all rounded up by the Saudis and deported/sent back from another border-crossing, further south in to Yemen, closer to the camps in Hajjah.

Heavy artillery and air strikes were daily occurrence in and around Sa’ada city. They all mentioned that the transportation to take people out from the dangerous areas is very expensive, so not many people can afford it. Numerous military check-points set up by the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni Army present more obstacles for people to leave the area. Dramatic rises in food, fuel, and water prices were widely reported in the media as well, and it seems that this is what most affects population in Sa’ada.

Some people in Sana’a tend to say that Iran is trying to create problems for Yemen through the Houthis. I think this is propaganda. If anyone reads or tries to investigate a bit, it’s clear that it is not a proxy war at all. This conflict has nothing to do with Iran, despite Saudi Arabia’s involvement in support of the Yemeni ruling party and the president. There has been no evidence that Iran is supporting the Houthis either with weapons, finances, or fighters. It is just logistically impossible; even if Iran would like to do this it cannot. This conflict is a very local issue, a power struggle between couple of people, tribes, and monetary interests.

Most likely from here the international community will end up running and maintaining camps for one or two years. Those IDPs who are in rural and urban areas will probably move to the camps at a later stage when they run out of their savings, so we will have to expand the camps or establish new ones. It’s extremely difficult and unaffordable to support families with rent in rural and urban areas. As for durable solutions, well, if and when the war stops, I doubt that most IDPs will rush back. Unexploded bombs, mines, destroyed houses, collapsed infrastructure, and security issues will prevent people from going back immediately, so we will end up having another protracted IDP situation.

HELO