Yemen has gone through much turmoil in the past decade and is heading in an unclear direction. What the future will bring for Yemen remains to be seen. Yemenis live and try to coexist with the shock of reality and not knowing if the future will be better or worse for them. The truce between the rivalling parties here and continuous efforts to extend it have created a state of general calm in the streets of Yemen and helped restore life in many governorates across the country.
If the truce remains in place and expands to include the opening of key roads between the governorates and re-launching of commercial flights, then the situation for Yemenis will significantly change, help the economy to recover and increase the ability of many citizens to restore their stalled work initiatives or launch new ones.
However, if the real purpose of the truce are political aims and the warring parties continue to impose a fait accompli in their areas of control, then we will have no security or economic stability.
The torment that society has been suffering from for many years will continue. Violence, destruction and killings will continue. Power and money will remain in the hands of those in power and their allies.
People will continue to be enslaved, as is literally the case in some areas. The social fabric will continue to be torn apart.
It´s like we´re standing at the crater of the volcano but risk falling to the bottom of the volcano if there will be no peace.
After ten years of conflict and instability in Yemen, the youth are ready to leave their home country as they have no voice in it. They lost everything and were deprived of their most basic rights: freedom of expression and the right to practice a normal life.
Immigration has become the dream of many young Yemenis because they have lost so much. Everything has become difficult, even impossible. We feel that we are running in a closed circle in vain, trying to escape from death.
I was fortunate and got the opportunity to travel for a period of time. During that period, war was raging in my home area. Everyone was urging me not to return. I, however, believed that I must go back. If we, the youth of Yemen, all leave then what will be left of the country?
At that time, I had high ambitions to help rebuild my region despite all the devastation and destruction it had been subject to. But then, my father lost his government job because of bullying and regional discrimination. The private sector company where my father worked his second job was bombed and turned into ashes. Suddenly, my father lost all sources of income.
We lived close to the firing lines without protection and no income. Despite all this, I did not lose hope and insisted on returning home to support my family and my country.
I returned to Yemen hoping that the situation would change and improve, but now I am left alone. My family has moved away to a different area and I live far away from them.
I continued working until the matter became a threat to my own life. I´m a humanitarian worker, activist, and community leader but these days I am subject to verbal violence and bullying from the local authorities. I am threatened with imprisonment and have ended up on the blacklist of the local authorities because I work with displaced people in my region.
I was threatened and attacked directly by people affiliated with the authorities. They showed up at my office, warning and threatening both me and my managers and urging them to fire me.
I suffered severely psychologically after what happened and I am still suffering until this day. Here I am going into my third year of living under threats and bans from working in certain areas for no reason. I have lost my family in a way since they moved to a different region.
I had a dream of staying on in my homeland, helping to rebuild it and grow old in it. But I was left with no choice and this is no home. I sleep with my eyes open and I do not feel safe. I am unable to complete my dream of continuing my postgraduate studies.
I did not get to live my life as a warrior for my country. Rather, I feel like I am living as a martyr of war at the moment. Perhaps immigrating to a new place will provide life and help me pick up the rubble of what is left of my soul.
