An image clicked in 2017 still haunts Ali Al-Senaidar, a photographer based in Old Sanaa, Yemen. He remembers the faces of the two boys바카라aged 13-14바카라very clearly. One boy, wearing a blue thawb (robe), is walking alongside his father on a near-empty street. Both father and son are holding hands; both are casually carrying Kalashnikovs on their shoulders and are walking away from the camera.
Walking towards the camera is another boy, of the same age, wearing olive green pants and a shirt, hands in his pocket, hair neatly combed and a school bag on his shoulder. The boy wearing thawb turns and looks at the boy with the school bag. A range of emotions is seen in his eyes바카라sadness, deprivation, envy. At that very moment, Al-Senaidar clicks the image. Little did he know that it would haunt him for a long time.
This story was published as part of Outlook Magazine's 'War And Peace' issue, dated January 11, 2025. To read more stories from the Issue, click here.
바카라The contrast between childhood innocence and the reality of war affected me deeply,바카라 he says. The image stayed with him for many days. 바카라To cope with the emotional trauma, I decided to express my feelings through my lens. My aim is to document such painful moments to raise awareness because the situation in Yemen is bad,바카라 he adds.
The Middle East has been on edge for many years now. 바카라Presently, all eyes are on Syria, Israel, Gaza and Lebanon. People think that the situation in Yemen is stable, but it바카라s not. It바카라s getting worse by the day. Yemen must not be forgotten,바카라 says Ahmad Algohbary, a Yemeni journalist who moved to the Netherlands recently because covering the conflict and telling heartbreaking stories became too emotionally draining for him.
People are exhausted. The civil war that began in 2014바카라when Houthi forces took over the capital city Sanaa and the government바카라has left Yemen in crutches. The UN-brokered truce in 2022 came as a hope, but the pause in fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen is at risk due to recent Houthi actions supporting Palestinians in Gaza. 바카라The Houthis have repeatedly attacked ships transiting the Red Sea in response to Israel바카라s war on Hamas, threatening to destabilise the situation in Yemen yet again,바카라 says Algohbary. The truce is far from perfect. It falls short of a comprehensive plan to negotiate a lasting peace in Yemen.
Dwindling Parameters
The humanitarian crisis remains dire. As per UN agencies바카라 based on March 2024 estimates바카라an estimated 4.5 million people are currently displaced, nearly 21.6 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, more than 4.5 million children do not attend schools and nearly 18 million Yemenis don바카라t know if or when they will eat another meal.
바카라If bullets and missiles don바카라t kill them, hunger and starvation will,바카라 says Algohbary. More than 2.7 million children are acutely malnourished. 바카라Once, I spent two days in a camp in the middle of a desert. I was shocked to see that people were eating flour mixed with water with some tea. They were not getting enough protein. They had not eaten chicken, meat or rice in a long, long time. Many women were cooking some leaves and herbs and giving them to children,바카라 recalls Algohbary.
There is no strategy to cope with food insecurity in Yemen that has not been tried, says Muneer Bin Wabar, who has over 15 years of expertise in Yemeni affairs. 바카라Daily life in Yemen is in a state of continuous deterioration,바카라 he adds.
The economy is facing mounting crises. 바카라There is a sharp decline in state revenues, a continuous deterioration in the value of the national currency, a lack of confidence in investments, and a near-total paralysis in the maintenance and development of infrastructure,바카라 elaborates Bin Wabar. 바카라A very large proportion of the population still depends on aid from international organisations, remittances from relatives abroad or financial assistance from donors,바카라 he adds.
Nearly 19.7 million people lack access to basic health services; only 52 per cent of health facilities are fully functioning and of those, most lack specialty physicians, equipment and basic medicines. 바카라This means either death from treatable diseases or incurring the exorbitant cost of travel and treatment abroad,바카라 says Bin Wabar.
Children are the most vulnerable as they can easily fall victim to mines and explosive devices. The psychological effects of being deprived of one or both parents or of displacement, migration and harsh conditions are profound. Education is in a dire state. Teachers바카라 salaries are not regular or even sufficient to meet their needs. There may not be enough textbooks and proper educational infrastructure. This means a generation that is less educated, less skilled and therefore less able to build a bright future, adds Bin Wabar.
The Emotional Cost of the War
Asmaa Waguih, an independent photojournalist based in Cairo, visited Yemen at different times regularly since 2016 and has been reporting on the civil war. It always intrigued her how only a small number of foreign journalists was keen to report on Yemen, despite the staggering scale of the war and why the Western media called the conflict in Yemen an 바카라invisible war바카라 or a 바카라forgotten war바카라.
During her initial visits, she encountered the after-effects of air raids. She remembers how there was no electricity, and people were forced to use solar panels. Gun-loving culture is deeply rooted in Yemen and Waguih remembers people freely buying guns from open markets. In many shops, young boys were working as sellers. It was common to find people walking around wearing traditional clothes with Kalashnikovs casually strung on their shoulders. She remembers how most people were extremely poor. 바카라They have oil and gas, but Yemen is still the poorest country in the Arab world. The country has really suffered due to years of war. There is not enough food. The education system has collapsed. People are not able to send their children to schools. Many women and children are sustaining on humanitarian aid. I noticed that families were moving from the Houthi-controlled areas because they did not want their sons to be recruited by the Houthis,바카라 she says.
After covering the war over a period of time, Waguih decided to document the civil war in Yemen by publishing a book containing 150 full colour photographs, contrasting scenes of everyday life for the people of this nation with the effects of an ongoing conflict between rival Yemeni factions, regional powers and their proxies. Her book바카라Unfinished War: A Journey Through Civil War in Yemen바카라released this year.
바카라The reason I decided to write the book is because it바카라s like nobody cares about you if you are not strategically placed. Many war-torn countries are in news but people genuinely don바카라t know about the situation in Yemen. By writing stories and by documenting the war, at least there are chances of people waking up to the civil war and the devastating impact it has had on the small country. My book is about Yemen, where Yemenis are telling their own stories in their words,바카라 she says.
Every time she visited Yemen, she felt it was getting more and more fragmented and getting worse than the previous visits. When asked about a particular image or incident that either broke her heart or filled her with hope, Waguih talks about the city of Taiz바카라considered to be the cultural heart of Yemen. It was here that she witnessed that a large number of people had suffered because of landmines. 바카라Being there really disturbed me emotionally. I met a lot of young men who had lost their limbs and legs. When I was leaving the city in 2016, I was literally crying. It was heartbreaking to see a beautiful city reduced to this war-torn region,바카라 she says.
While the devastation in Taiz that Waguih witnessed over the years continues to haunt her even now, for Al-Senaidar, who is still in Yemen, survival is an everyday battle. 바카라The situation on the ground has been terrifying, and day by day, we have tried to adapt to the changing circumstances. I have seen many families flee. The homes of many have been destroyed right in front of my eyes. Many have lost their jobs and livelihoods due to the war,바카라 says Al-Senaidar. It has impacted him at a personal level as well. The family struggles to obtain the most basic necessities, as daily life has become fraught with obstacles. His family lives in constant fear, he says.
Though he has chosen to tell the painful stories of Yemen through his lens, the photographic journey has been emotionally draining. 바카라As a photographer, I have witnessed many conflicts and airstrikes. I swing between sadness and anxiety. Every picture carries a painful narrative behind it,바카라 he says.
When asked to share the story behind a photograph that filled him with hope, he talks about the image of a school building that he clicked in 2019. 바카라I clicked this image of children studying on the ground in a government school that lacked doors and windows, as well as proper school desks. After sharing this photo on one of the platforms, I was, within a month or two, able to raise funds to provide school desks and build six classrooms. That moment was filled with hope, and it proved to me that efforts can make a difference, even in the darkest circumstances,바카라 he says.
What does the future look like for the people of Yemen? 바카라There is no hope. The future looks bleak and uncertain,바카라 says Bin Wabar. 바카라However, beyond the complexities of politics, I believe that local communities can build a better future if they are empowered and focus on responding to their real needs and building their capacities. Yemenis need vision, leadership and hope above all else, and then things will take care of themselves with determination and resolve,바카라 he adds.
(This appeared in the print as 'The Burdened')
