Tuesday, February 1, 2011

North Yemen: Living in the dust

More and more wars have devastated the northern Yemen. Help is so far only sporadically, as the battered region is hardly accessible. Now first time a delegation of United Nations Refugee Agency and European tour the area - and found child soldiers, desperate and cities from dust. The wars came here as the seasons, and people became accustomed to count them as life-years: the first war, the second, third ...


The sixth war in northern Yemen was the worst, because he found a country that was already on the ground. Each new round was more complicated than the last, ruthless, fought with ever more expensive weapons. The conflict grew like a tumor, fed by ever new suffering and more and more multi-faceted interests.

"What do you need?" Asks the Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva a gaunt, toothless man "help" the man says humanitarian operations are very simple. Everything is lacking, of water, flour, medicines, schools and clothing, in rights, fuel, transportation, beds and shade. Everything is welcome.

Simple as that really is. In fact, enough money is there. The EU will provide 19.5 million euros this year, the refugee work of the UN, the UNHCR, nearly ten million dollars. It's really just about getting the material to where it is needed most. And that's the problem. "We need access, access, access," says Georgieva.

"We know best where the need is greatest," she added, the governor of Saada responded. With him was lifted by the best. There is a non-war - yet it is the first time that a high-level delegation may look in Saada. António Guterres, the head of the UNHCR, Georgieva his counterpart in the EU Commission.

It is unusual to make trips together. However, the situation in North Yemen too seriously, they say, in order to comply with customs. The delegation is through the ruins of the city of Saada. The devastation is total, and only endure the sight of her, because clay buildings destroyed are more tolerable than the eye of destroyed concrete.

Especially when children play anywhere between the mud walls. Power comes from Generatn, water must be dragged into canisters. And yet, many are glad to be able to live here. Outside the city, the situation is more serious: "Malnutrition in children under five years there is worse than in Darfur at the beginning of the conflict," said a senior humanitarian.

In some areas there was no medical care for five years. Since August 2010 there is in the northern provinces of Yemen, a cease-fire. A non-fragile state of war, who snaps out at any time can be. The six waves of war have been brought too many weapons into the country, and many have their own interests in the conflict.

"We now have to show that peace brings development, otherwise we go again," said the Commissioner. The government tries to play down the conflict. "The Huthis are basically just a family," said a Yemeni Diplomat, who accompanied the group. No state is too happy, over large parts of the country to have any power any more.

Checkpoints mark a circle of about seven kilometers around the city. Beyond it begins a virtually inaccessible area in which could decide the future of Yemen and to the region. Free hand for the "war on terror"? The Huthi are a tribe and thus the Hashemite descendants of the Prophet Mohammed.

Their religion, Saidismus is a form of Shiism, but in the Sunni rites are very similar. In any case Huthis and Sunnis pray in the same mosques. Your concerns are not a religious ". The Huthi feel neglected by the central government you want above all development," says Georgieva. The conflict was exacerbated because of the powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia, suspected the Huthis close to Iran and tried to spread their own Religionslesart, the orthodox Wahhabism.

And the government in Sanaa was doing everything to portray the rebellious Huthis as partisans of al-Qaida to the conflict free hand for the "war on terror" to get. The war of Saada "has two basic pillars of stability in Yemen violated: that political formula of power sharing and the gradual approach of two religious identities," the International Crisis Group wrote in its latest analysis.


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