Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic ADVERTISEMENTAs Ramadan ended and Eid celebrations kicked off in Egypt\u2019s capital at the end of March, a group of Yemenis gathered on a Nile felucca \u2014 a wooden sailing boat typically encountered across the Mediterranean \u2014 for revelry and respite from their troubles. They are just a fraction of the estimated 600,000 Yemeni citizens now resident in Cairo. Before war in their home country broke out in March 2015, that number stood at just 70,000. In the corner of the boat sat businessmen Tawfiq and Basim, chatting over mint tea, reflecting on what life must be like for those still in Yemen. \u201cChildren are being deprived of the joy of Eid,\u201d lamented Basim. \u201cThey are deprived of smiling and the happiness of childhood.\u201dSince a Saudi-led coalition started launching airstrikes a decade ago to fight off an insurgent and increasingly radical militia called Ansar Allah \u2013 better known as the Houthis \u2013 over 230,000 people have been killed or died because of hunger and lack of access to medicine.According to the UN, around half of Yemen\u2019s 40 million inhabitants are in dire need of humanitarian assistance and protection services. The war has also caused an economic crisis with prices for basic goods skyrocketing out of reach for most due to hyperinflation, exacerbated by a breakaway currency in the Houthi-controlled north.One of the most expensive things now, complains Tawfiq, are flights. \u201cYemenia Airlines is the most expensive airline in the world, and why is that? There\u2019s no competition. War is the cause and war is the basis.\u201dA man glanced over disapprovingly, but refrained from joining the conversation. He later admitted to Euronews that he was a senior figure at the airline. However, even in Yemen, the patchwork of competing authorities and militias makes travelling within the country a massive challenge. Before the war, driving from the capital Sana\u2019a to the southern port of Aden would take a few hours. Now it often takes a full day. \u201cIt is as if you are a stranger in your own country,\u201d Basim told Euronews. \u201cI hope for the end of the war and that we become one people, far from regionalism, partisanship, sectarianism.\u201dTawfiq jumped in: \u201cAll countries have wars.\u201d \u201cIn Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, there is at least change. But for more than 10 years, we are now under the rule of warlords who eat from garbage cans,\u201d he retorted morosely. \u201cWhere is our government? Where is the United Nations?\u201d \u2018Dancing on the heads of snakes\u2019Rising out of the Arabian Sea and giving way to craggy mountains and desert, Yemen is seen as one of the likely birthplaces for the Arabic language and civilization. It was also one of the first Silk Road trading routes, making it an important economic and cultural hub.However, it was seldom ruled as one consolidated entity. Before unification under Ali Abdullah Saleh in 1990, Yemen\u2019s south was for decades a Marxist-Leninist republic, while the north was ruled by a Zaydi Shi\u2019a imamate \u2013 the sect from which the Houthis hail \u2013 supported by Saudi Arabia. Even after unification, Saleh\u2019s regime was plagued by the constant threat of civil strife, especially with early incarnations of the Houthis in the north. The president fought six wars with them in the early 2000s. As Saleh himself said, he was constantly \u201cdancing on the heads of snakes\u201d. ADVERTISEMENTWhen revolutionary fervour swept across the Arab world in 2011, Yemen was ripe for change. Saleh\u2019s forces reacted violently, once shooting and killing 45 protestors in what became known as the Friday of Dignity.For protestors like Tawakkol Karman, this only spurred them on. Karman won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work and became known as \u201cthe mother of the revolution\u201d.Speaking to Euronews from the US, she was quick to push back against the idea that the revolution led to the chaos Yemen now finds itself in. \u201cThis is completely untrue,\u201d she said. \u201cThe fact is that the war in Yemen came as a result of the \u2018counter-revolution\u2019 by the Houthis usurping power in Sana\u2019a in 2014, after a three year of transitional democracy.\u201dADVERTISEMENTFor others, even the Houthi takeover itself wasn\u2019t cause for immediate alarm. Campaigner and analyst Nadwa al-Dawsari explained that, back in 2014, \u201cmany of us Yemenis did not realise how dangerous the Houthis are and what they’re capable of.\u201d\u201cWe had no idea that the Houthis were already in charge, and we didn’t realise that they had an entire IRGC and Hezbollah expertise machine behind them,\u201d al-Dawsari told Euronews.What ensued became infamous. A lightning expansion by the Houthis, with the transitional president Hadi bundled out of the country at night to Saudi Arabia, who \u2013 in late March 2015 \u2013 launched the first of thousands of airstrikes to repel the Houthis.A country redividedThe following years saw fierce fighting, with the Houthis laying millions of landmines across Yemen and the Saudi-led coalition launching over 25,000 airstrikes, killing almost 20,000 people, including 1,400 children, according to researchers.ADVERTISEMENTEdmund Fitton-Brown, the British ambassador to Yemen from 2015 to 2017, explained to Euronews that internal political changes in Saudi Arabia may have affected the coalition’s decision to intervene. \u201cMohammed bin Salman at that time was still emerging as a power in Saudi Arabia. And this was really his sort of first chance to make a big statement as a leader,\u201d he said.\u201cOf course, it hasn’t worked out particularly well for him \u2026 but I think they were conducting the campaign in reasonably good faith.\u201dMeanwhile, retired Saudi Major General Abdullah Al Qahtani contended that his country wasn\u2019t involved enough, despite being intimately entangled in Yemeni affairs for decades and now housing the partially exiled Internationally Recognised Government.ADVERTISEMENTSaudi Arabia also hosted ousted President Saleh, until he returned to Yemen to form an ill-fated alliance with the Houthis, who later killed him.\u201cIf I have anything to say about Saudi Arabia\u2019s mistakes in Yemen, it is that it did not impose, for a very long time, on our brothers in Yemen the importance of establishing an institutional state,\u201d the major general told Euronews from Riyadh.However, many inside Yemen felt very different about Saudi involvement, even if they disliked or opposed the Houthis. The devastation on the ground had a profound effect on Yemenis. Back on the felucca stood Ahmed in traditional Yemeni dress, including the jambiya dagger.\u201cI just hope that instead of supporting Yemen with missiles, they would support it with money. They would support it with things that benefit the country,\u201d he sighed.ADVERTISEMENT\u2018Under existential threat\u2019As Ahmed goes off to dance on the top deck, Leila Lutf Al-Thawr comes over. After the revolution, she created the centre-left, non-aligned Arab Hope Party. She hails from the capital and is desperate to return, but fears the consequences.\u201cI want to go back, but of course I’m worried that if I do, the Houthis will take me as a hostage,\u201d Lutf Al-Thawr told Euronews. Since taking over Sana\u2019a, the Houthis have imposed an increasingly authoritarian state. They have been accused by the UN and human rights organisations of widespread use of arbitrary detention and execution.The group has particularly targeted women and children, recruiting child soldiers and an all-female morality police force called the Zainabiyat, who have been documented as using vicious, often sexual violence against women.ADVERTISEMENTYet people like Leila worry that the Saudi-led campaign may have played into the Houthis\u2019 hand. She shouts over the increasingly loud music that \u201cthe Houthis are so smart\u201d. \u201cThey know how and to manipulate their opposition\u2019s actions,\u201d she explained. \u201cThe Yemeni government, all of them, do not understand the situation in Yemen and how to move Yemenis. The Houthis know. They studied Yemeni society.\u201dA scholar who used to be close to the Houthi family but wanted to remain anonymous for their and their family\u2019s safety, agreed, adding that the group play on the historical trauma felt by many Shi\u2019a Muslims.\u201cShi\u2019ism arose from the marginalisation and killing of Imam Ali and the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala. Such events have provided long-lasting sources of grievance and mobilisation,\u201d they explained.ADVERTISEMENTIn the year 680, Imam Husayn ibn Ali \u2013 grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and son of the fourth caliph Ali \u2013 and his small group of soldiers were outnumbered and massacred by an army sent by the Umayyad caliph Yazid I at the city of Karbala in northern Iraq. The fallout caused a religious schism between what are now known as the Sunni and Shi\u2019a branches of Islam.Speaking on the war itself, the scholar concluded that \u201cit hardened (the Houthis\u2019) ideological stance, reinforcing their sense of being under existential threat.\u201dFrom ceasefire to speedboatsIn 2022, a more sustainable, if fragile, ceasefire was agreed by the parties in Yemen and the country uneasily relaxed into stalemate. The looming threat of gunfire and airstrikes somewhat receded. It led some to question the Houthis\u2019 durability and ability to govern when there was no one to actively fight. Then in November 2023, the Houthis launched a series of drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping they claimed was connected to Israel, in response to the latter\u2019s campaign against Hamas in Gaza.ADVERTISEMENTIn the year that followed, they attacked over 90 vessels, hijacking one and sinking another. A US-led coalition responded with its own airstrikes on areas inside Yemen. For ordinary Yemeni citizens, the spectre of violence at any moment returned.It has also given the Houthis a new enemy that jeopardised peace with old ones. Major General Al Qahtani said that, although Saudi Arabia wasn\u2019t involved in the current strikes, it seemed like negotiations between his country and the Houthis had stalled.Despite this, Tawakkol Karman is adamant that all is not lost. \u201cI do not regret the revolution, nor am I pessimistic about the future, nor have I lost my revolutionary faith,\u201d she says defiantly. \u201cI have always believed that revolutions will ultimately triumph.\u201dAs the felucca approached the dock, a smaller vessel bobbed past, two frayed and discoloured Saudi flags limping in the light breeze. ADVERTISEMENTA shy young man sidled up. When asked about the situation in his homeland, quietly, he said, \u201cThe Houthis\u2019 power is the Yemeni people. When they bomb and attack Israel or ships, the Yemeni people think they are protecting them.\u201dAs Layla drives back from the celebrations, she shrugs and laughs sadly at the young man’s comment.\u201cIt’s so silly, actually. They should have learned from before. From the Saudis, from everything that happened in Yemen for 10 years.\u201d \u201cTen years and nobody understands what was going on. It’s really insane,\u201d she ponders as she steers the car away from the bright Nile corniche and into the warren of Cairene streets.ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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