Yemen is more of Civil War issue, rather than pulling GCC countries in it & involving Pakistan too
ADEN, Yemen — Rooftop snipers
have emptied the streets of this dusty seaside city and swelled its hospitals
and morgues.Weeks of fighting between armed groups have left nearly 200 people
dead and the city starved of water, fuel and electricity. Hospitals struggle to
obtain anesthetic and dressings. Barefoot, nervous teenagers with matted hair
and guns mind checkpoints on the treacherous roads. Gun battles sweep across the
city while residents lie low and worry that there is worse suffering to come.
“The
war of hunger has not started — yet,” said Ali Bamatraf, a grocer with
dwindling stocks, standing among empty food boxes that would not soon be
replaced.As war engulfs Yemen, no place in the beleaguered country has suffered
as severely as Aden, a southern port city captive to ferocious street fighting
for the better part of a harrowing month. Foreign navies patrol its waters and
warplanes circle above, blockading a city that is steadily crumbling under
reckless fire from tanks and heavy guns.
“Damaged. Ruined,”
said Faris al-Shuaibi, a professor of English literature at Aden University,
searching for the words to describe the beaten-up neighborhood around him.
“Everything is destroyed.”
Start
of Clash:
The
clashes began in mid-March as a feud between forces allied
with two members of Yemen’s political elite: southern fighters loyal to
President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who had retreated to Aden after being driven from the capital, against Houthi militiamen and
security forces allied with Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s former
leader.
Weeks
later, the war has spread and become far more complicated. Saudi Arabia
unleashed an air offensive last month that so far has failed in its
primary goal: to stop the Houthi advance.
*Saudi
officials are threatening a ground invasion, seeing the hand of Iran, their regional
nemesis, behind the Houthis, whose leaders follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
For
many residents of Aden, though, each day has only simplified the conflict,
reducing it to an existential fight. After Mr. Hadi and most of his loyal
fighters quit the city, residents dusted off personal weapons and formed their
own units to fight the advance of the Houthis and their allies — the latest
northern invaders, they say, seeking to dominate the south.
North
and South Yemen were separate countries until 1990 and fought a
brief civil war four years later. For decades, southern grievances over ill
treatment by the rulers in the northern capital, Sana, have festered,
escalating in recent years into a movement openly calling for secession.
Professor
Shuaibi was among thousands of people protesting peacefully a few months ago in
Aden for an independent state, in a square adorned with pictures of southerners
who had died in wars and at the hands of Mr. Saleh’s security forces.
On
Thursday, he was back in the streets with a gun, preparing to join other
residents fighting in the central district of Al Mualla.
The
local militias are loosely organized, dominated by young men focused on
securing their own neighborhoods, said Jamal Khulaqi, a 25-year-old
Yemeni-American from Buffalo who said he was helping with relief efforts in the
city. Most lack training and weapons apart from AK-47s.
Their
opponents are mostly security men loyal to Mr. Saleh, known for their
repression back when they were in power. Now, as militiamen, residents say,
they are unrestrained and more brutal. “They are bombing innocent people, families,”
Professor Shuaibi said.
The
Houthis, fighting all over the country, are a smaller part of the force in
Aden, their ranks filled with many teenagers and even some children. Some of
the young Houthis who had been captured seemed filled with religious zeal and
said they had been told they were going to Aden to fight Al-Qaeda, the Sunni
extremists the Houthis regard as their principal foe, Professor Shuaibi
said.“There is no Al-Qaeda here,” he said.
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The city has been carved up into sectors guarded by fighters with guns slung
over their shoulders, drained by the stresses of war but still full of swagger.
One fighter, Mohamed Saleh Salem, 38, called the local fighters “ferocious” and
vowed that the Houthis would not advance, while adding that he had not had a
bath in days.
The
Houthis and their allies, armed with tanks and other heavy weapons, have
captured several strategic areas, including a coastal road. But their hold on
the city remains shaky, and they are vulnerable to repeated attacks by the
local groups, which are fighting in familiar neighborhoods.
The
Houthi forces respond savagely to any assault, Mr. Khulaqi said. “When someone
shoots at them, they fire on buildings,” he said as he drove a friend through
the city’s checkpoints to catch the only bus still shuttling people out of Aden
and across the country to the Saudi border.
As
dangerous as it is to travel outside the city, it has become deadly to stay.
Volunteer medics said that at least 198 people had been killed and nearly 2,000
people injured in the city since March 25. The estimate was probably
conservative: Ambulances have not been able to reach people in neighborhoods
with the heaviest fighting, said Khadeja bin Bourek, a volunteer aid worker,
who said there was also a shortage of medics at government hospitals.
Casualty Update:
*Valerie
Pierre, the project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Aden, said an
average of 15 to 20 patients, most of them gunshot victims, arrived every day
at a hospital where the group is working and living. The group had just
received its first shipment of medical supplies by boat from the tiny East
African nation of Djibouti, across a narrow strait from Aden, but still had
only a third of the supplies it needed.
Ms.
Pierre, a midwife, arrived in Aden in January, finding a “beautiful city, a
very historic place.” Now, she and the doctors are sequestered, listening to
gun battles, sometimes distant, sometimes just outside the hospital walls.
“I am full of adrenaline, so I am still running, still
motivated,” she said. “It is very scary.
Elsewhere
in the city, residents were hauling water in buckets because water tanks
supplying at least four districts had been destroyed or cut off by the
fighting. In many places, electricity was only available a few hours each day.
Only local neighborhood stores were open, and by 7 p.m., the streets were
empty, except for the fighters.
Saudi
airstrikes have mostly targeted the outskirts of the city, in an attempt to cut
off the supply lines of the Houthis and their allies. There also appears to
have been shelling from warships, though no one seems to know for sure.
“Aden
is almost the only city in Yemen to be attacked by air, sea and land,” said
Nashwan al-Othmani, a resident.
The
siege has left little time to think about the political arguments dividing the
country. No one seems to be clamoring for the return of Mr. Hadi, whom the
Saudis have vowed to restore as president.
“There
are many who criticize Hadi,” Mr. Othmani said. “There are many who accuse him
of bringing the struggle to Aden and then leaving.”
Edited By:
KANWAL
ABIDI ( 063 News) - Global Press Agency (founder)
- Journalist &
Political Analyst
Editors' Point of Order:
Saudis should lobby to restore Hadi, rather than indulge in airstrikes in the name of territorial integrity.
