Publications

A Day in Line

June 2020: My alarm went off at 6 a.m. that Monday. Normally, I would start getting ready for work at that time, but this particular morning I wanted to try something exceptional. I wanted to fill my car with gas. I had seen the queues of cars lined up outside petrol stations, so I knew …

A Body Without a Leg in a Country Without a Head

Five hours. Three hundred minutes. Eighteen thousand seconds. The blink of an eye. That’s how long it took to transform one life into another. Before surgery, I had been a man, just like any other – someone who walked on two legs. After surgery, I was an amputee.   I am able to recall in vivid …

A New Path Forward: Empowering a Leadership Role for Yemeni Civil Society

Throughout six years of conflict, Yemeni civil society organizations (CSOs) have sought to contribute to humanitarian response efforts in a dynamic crisis. However, they have faced considerable challenges in playing a leadership role in response efforts, building meaningful partnerships with international organizations and directly accessing donor resources. …

Neither Yemeni nor foreign: Life as a Muwalladin of Hadramawt

In Hadramawt, the region where I am from in Yemen, far in the country’s southeast, people place great importance on family lineage.  A person’s last name and tribe reveals their position within Hadrami society. Yet because of where my father was born, I was not indoctrinated with these ideas as a child. When I was in primary …

The Struggle Far From Home: Yemeni Refugees in Cairo

Since 2015, the devastating conflict in Yemen has created a debilitating economic and humanitarian crisis and displaced millions of Yemenis. While the vast majority of displaced Yemenis remain within Yemen — around 3.65 million — Yemenis who do seek safety abroad most often flee to countries across the Arab world, including Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti and Jordan, as well as to Malaysia.…

Islah Wary of a Hadi Reconciliation with the STC

On December 11, Yemeni government and Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces began withdrawing from frontlines in Abyan governorate. The redeployments – first stipulated in the Saudi-sponsored Riyadh Agreement signed in November 2019 but implemented more than a year later than scheduled – are set to be followed by the imminent formation of a new Yemeni government that includes STC figures. …