The war on Yemen: How did the dream of a happy Yemen dissipate in eleven years?

The protests continued for several months, and tens of thousands of Yemenis participated in them, who were filled with hope for a free and democratic state while calling for the overthrow of the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled the country for more than thirty years.

The scene in Yemen worsened with the outbreak of violence and confrontations between demonstrators and some Yemeni tribes on the one hand, and the Yemeni army forces affiliated with the regime on the other, which resulted in deaths and injuries. Later, Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the Gulf initiative in Riyadh in November 2011, according to which presidential elections were held within 90 days.

During this period, an attack took place on the presidential palace mosque in Sana’a on June 3, targeting a number of prominent officials, including President Saleh, who was seriously wounded and burned. The attack was described as an assassination attempt, which prompted him to leave for Saudi Arabia for treatment.

With Saleh gone, Ghaida felt “victorious”, albeit temporarily. But at the same time, she realized that Saleh had created a country where he “cannot receive treatment and does not guarantee proper treatment in its hospitals,” in a clear sign of the bad situation that Yemen was witnessing at the time.

At the same time, the capital, Sana’a, was witnessing clashes between the army forces and other forces belonging to the tribal leader, Sadiq al-Ahmar, leader of the Hashid tribe.

Ghaida and her family were not in Yemen at that time, as her father had to leave the country due to the seriousness of the situation there, at the request of the international body for which he works.

But she returned just before the election period to take her high school exams. When Ghaidaa wanted to describe that period, she said that she saw the Yemeni people for the first time standing together from north to south for the sake of the country, without skirmishes, which raised their faith in the aim of their protests.

Aspirations for a new Yemen rose with the advent of the presidential elections, which saw only one candidate, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the former vice president of the outgoing Ali Abdullah Saleh.

For Ghaida, it was the elections that took place on the 21st of February 2012 Just a “referendum” is nothing but, because there is only one candidate. However, the situation is the same as that of many Yemenis, who had no other option but to participate and vote, in order to avoid the return of Ali Abdullah Saleh to power and his clinging to it more.

Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi succeeded in the elections, and Ali Abdullah Saleh announced his official resignation from power.

Ghaida was on her way home that day, “While riding in the taxi, I was waiting to see scenes of chaos in the streets, but the situation was stable, which made me realize that citizens’ commitment and love for their country is what preserves the stability of the country, not the government,” she says. Ghayda.

Yemen experienced a period of relative stability for years, during which sessions of a comprehensive national dialogue conference were launched in Sana’a with the support of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United Nations, so that the various parties to the popular protests and Yemeni parties agreed on its outcomes.

However, the Ansar Allah Houthi group, which had fought several armed conflicts against the previous regime, rejected the conference’s outputs and began mobilizing militarily to expand towards Sana’a and take control of state institutions on September 21, 2014. This was followed by the imposition of house arrest on the elected president, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, at his home in Sana’a.

“We felt disappointed at first, but it didn’t take long, as we began to believe that the Houthis might be able to bring about the change that we were calling for and for which we went out in the revolution,” Ghaida says.

“I remember very well the details of the first period after the Houthis took control of the government. They began to drop everyone who did not belong to them from ministries and official positions, and appoint members of their group. This is in addition to the violence, looting and devastation that the country witnessed,” Ghaida added.

Meanwhile, Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi left Sana’a, heading south towards Aden on January 22, 2015.

It did not take long for the Houthi forces to advance towards Aden in March 2015, prompting the president to leave for Saudi Arabia.

“We woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of rockets and shells, unaware of what was happening,” Ghaida described the launch of the military operation led by the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched a military coalition of nine Arab countries on March 26, 2015, and called it the “Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen,” to lead a large-scale air operation against multiple targets of the Houthis in Sana’a and other governorates, and called the operation “Decisive Storm.” “.

“This was not what we aspired for from our revolution,” Ghaida describes with great disappointment the first eight months of the launch of Decisive Storm, during which Yemenis experienced a period of continuous power outages in a city that lacked the infrastructure to withstand a military attack of this magnitude, according to Ghaida.

The Saudi-led military operation made matters worse in Yemen, as it deepened the conflict between the parties competing for power, and the conflict expanded to extend beyond Yemen’s borders. In June 2015, the Houthi movement launched the first ballistic missile towards Saudi Arabia, thus declaring the start of a new phase of the conflict. .

Meanwhile, the government forces affiliated with Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi regained control of the city of Aden, supported by the military operations carried out by the Saudi-led Arab coalition, at a time when the international community’s attempts to gather the Yemeni parties around the table for talks with the aim of stopping the fighting did not stop.

After more than a year, attention turned again to Yemen, but this time to condemn an ​​incident that the international community described as the bloodiest since the start of the conflict in the country. Among them are officials and children.

Ghaida added that despite the support of some Yemenis for the coalition, “it did not achieve its goals, but rather caused the destruction of the infrastructure, as it bombed hospitals, schools, mourning and wedding houses, causing human tragedies for the Yemenis.” This led to the division of Yemen, as the Houthis formed a government in Sanaa in 2016, while the Saudi-backed government took control of Aden in the far south, while the other southern regions were taken over by the Southern Transitional Council.

Ghaida complained about the difficult situation during that period, in which living crises were exacerbated and complicated. At a time when the coalition forces imposed restrictions on Yemeni airspace, which led to the closure of Sana’a airport, however, turning back in Yemen was impossible, especially after the Houthi group announced the killing of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh during battles with forces loyal to him in Sana’a.

With the continuation of the conflict in Yemen and the high number of its victims, the specter of famine began to threaten civilians in Yemen, which called on the international community to take urgent steps and start new attempts to resolve the conflict, and efforts succeeded in December 2018 in bringing the parties together in the Sweden talks.

By 2019, the course of the conflict in Yemen began to take a new turn, as the UAE announced the withdrawal of its forces from Yemen, while continuing its support for the separatist southern forces that took control of Aden.

On the other hand, Riyadh tried to sponsor calm talks between the UAE and the forces supported by the government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and the parties signed an agreement to reactivate state institutions and organize military forces under the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, but the agreement did not materialize.

“Yemen has become an arena for confrontation between conflicting parties that do not care about Yemen’s interest, but rather about its power and control,” this is how Ghaida sees her country’s situation.

Even with the outbreak of the Corona virus in general 2020The situation in Yemen did not calm down and the parties did not abide by a truce approved by the United Nations in an attempt to avert the threat of famine threatening the country. Ghaida considered this an additional reason “the Yemeni people were waiting for him to die.”

At the beginning of the year 2021And with the transition of the US administration to President Joe Biden, Washington announced the cessation of US support for weapons in Yemen, followed by a Saudi initiative to solve the crisis, but it was rejected by the Ansar Allah Houthi movement.

After years of complexity, the then-new UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundenberg, finally succeeded in April. 2022 In reaching an agreement with the conflicting parties on a two-month cease-fire, it was renewed until October of the same year before it was officially announced and the conflicting parties returned to fighting recently.

Thus, the word in Aden became for the Southern Transitional Council, while the Ansar Allah Houthi group controls Sana’a, while the coalition-backed government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi has become the weaker party in the conflict.

“Unfortunately, the Yemeni people are no longer able to dream and have forgotten their right to do so,” with these words Ghaida describes her feelings 12 years after they took to the streets in the hope of change.

“One of the simplest dreams now is to work and live a life that provides the most basic necessities of life.”