Wherever you go in Yemen, there are traces of the nine-year civil war. Bombed-out houses, walls riddled with gunfire and snipers, children with amputated legs.
Roads that are closed and instead force travelers into dried-up riverbeds and steep mountain roads.
Dirty water and refugee camps screaming for help.
The conflict in Yemen has forced around 4.5 million people to flee, killed hundreds of thousands, shattered a community and led to neighbors shooting at each other. Much of it orchestrated by forces outside Yemen; such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Despite this enormous disaster, the conflict has received little attention. Partly because other conflicts such as Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas have taken focus, but also because it is difficult to monitor.
A journalist visa can take several years to obtain. Flights there are few and expensive. And not least because there are several different power groups that must give permission to large and small. About the same thing. Repeatedly.
Once there, it is striking how the eyes of the world are turned elsewhere. Almost no reconstruction is visible. Which is strange if you consider Yemen’s geo-strategic location on the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, natural resources and cultural treasures.
But nothing is only dark. Most of the people we meet long for peace, for the country to be reunited and for people to be able to travel freely between the provinces. Many say they have felt hopeful since the cease-fire, which was concluded in 2022 and has been extended from time to time. It has been broken countless times but it has still given an illusion of possibility. A small opening for peace.
The hopes of many rest on the Swede Hans Grundberg, who has been the UN’s special envoy for Yemen since 2021 and who is trying to get the parties to find a solution.
But since the Iranian-backed Houthis began firing robots at cargo ships in the Red Sea, as a form of support for Hamas in Gaza, many worry that the group will score domestic political points and try to take more cities under its control. Then the war would be in full swing again.
If the development is not stopped, the door to peace will be closed again.