Feature: 4-year conflict leaves displaced Yemenis in desperate plight

by Murad Abdo

ADEN, Yemen, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Four years of intense military operations raging between the Yemeni government forces and the Houthi rebels have forced thousands of People to leave their homes in search for safe places to live.

The internal bloody conflict entered its fifth year on Tuesday. Even now, the warring factions have not decided yet to cease the gunfire but geared up to engage in new devastating battles in different areas of the impoverished Arab country.

The number of forcibly displaced People is increasing on a daily basis as new families continue fleeing their war-torn areas in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah and elsewhere in Yemen.

In the government-controlled southern province of Aden, hundreds of internally displaced families who are living in bad humanitarian conditions started to lose hope that their desperate plight will be ended one day.

The 53-year-old Abu Ahmed felt that returning to his house in the strategic port city of Hodeidah will not happen in the near future as fighting continues in escalation with no end in sight.

"Our living conditions are becoming more difficult every day after leaving our houses and properties," the man told Xinhua, saying that the resumption of the armed confrontations in Hodeidah indicates that he will remain displaced for an unspecified period.

The man said that thousands of People are extremely exhausted following four years of fighting that destroyed their lives and caused long-term consequences for their country.

"We are suffering as a result of this miserable situation, but the politicians should take necessary steps to provide solutions for ending this crisis," he said.

Many other displaced Yemenis expressed pessimism over their country's future, as the two-warring sides do not pay much attention to terminate the civil war that is fueled by regional interventions.

"The economic situation exacerbated our living conditions and in recent days we are facing several problems as displaced citizens," Mohamed Ayadh, an internally displaced citizen, told Xinhua.

"We tried several times to bring representatives of human organizations to watch our miserable situation in this place, but all of our attempts did not succeed. We got nothing," Ayadh said.

He added that "finally, we resorted to local social figures who accepted to support us with a number of drinking water tanks that partially reduced the lack of water crisis in the camp."

"Some displaced People spent more than 15 days in collecting pieces of woods to establish a hut, because we still don't have enough tents to protect our children during the rainy days or storms," according to Ayadh.

Another displaced man named Abdo Salam, a father of five children from Hodeidah, told Xinhua that some families went out to the streets begging for food and money from the passers-by to feed their children in the camp.

"I can't endure the displacement and live with this humiliating situation with no adequate daily basic needs. Some displaced families turned to street begging because here we are hungry without food," Salam said.

On Monday, a United Nations humanitarian agency warned that a sharp spike of suspected cholera cases was recorded this year in Yemen as the number of displaced People continues to increase.

According to a UN report, around 100,000 suspected cholera cases were found across Yemen from the beginning of the year until March, and over 190 People have died.

"Starvation and diseases such as diarrhea and cholera severely hit this displacement camp and we are left alone with no medical aids or interventions to rescue the affected People," Khaled Adel, 27, said.

"The health situation is very miserable and even the government institutions haven't visited us till today to take measures for the new diseases that were discovered in this camp during the past few days," he said.

The long-running Yemeni conflict taking place between the two warring parties has left tens of thousands dead or injured including at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the UN.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, an estimated 3.3 million People remain displaced, up from 2.2 million last year. The number of sites hosting the internally displaced People has increased by almost half over the past year.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi rebels overtook the capital Sanaa and ousted the internationally-backed government of President Abd-Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.