Yemeni Humanitarian Crisis Deepens

During a visit to an isolated desert settlement outside Yemen's capital Sanaa, VOA's Heather Murdock reports on the despair of some of the thousands of people who have fled their homes since the war in northern Yemen began in 2004

08 February 2010

Refugee tends her sheep outside her tent at Mazraq Refugee Camp in northern Yemen (file photo)

For families fleeing the war in northern Yemen, options are shrinking. The capital Sanaa hosts more than 10,000 displaced people, and most live packed into dirty stone rooms without enough food, water or medical care.

In Guder, on the outskirts of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, nobody seems to care who wins the war.

Yahya Hassen al-Aisery says his home in the Old City of Sa'ada, in Northern Yemen, is now occupied by the Houthis, a rebel army that has been battling the government here for six years. Al-Aisery says his house is under attack by the Yemeni army.

His family of 28 now stays in an isolated desert settlement, in the Guder area. They share two small rooms, and none of the children go to school.

More than 200,000 people have fled their homes since the war began in 2004. Many, like al-Aisery, have been displaced several times. Aid workers and journalists have been banned from most of the war torn area, so no one really knows how many people are trapped.

Faisel al-Hussaini alsoo fled his home when renewed fighting broke out last summer. He says in the war's epicenter, Sa'ada city, droves of people sleep on the streets, under tarps, and in abandoned cars.