I remember this day vividly, half a decade has passed and it feels like yesterday. It was a Tuesday and I had decided beforehand to skip school that day to study for an exam. I slept early the night before as I always do, then when I woke up, I grabbed my phone, opened WhatsApp and found my class’s group blowing up with messages. I began to read through them and I was not comprehending the words “Saudi declared a war against us” it seemed insane. I went out of my room, I found my mother and sister in front of the TV watching the news and it was in fact real. Everyone in Sana’a was awake, the first bomb thrown left the whole city awake, except me that is, that is also when I discovered what a deep sleeper I was. It did not make any sense to me, why were we attacked? A few days prior on the 21st of March, 2015 there was an explosion in a mosque during the Friday prayer which led to the death of so many. Maybe that was the warning sign, but I never saw it coming. The whole day I laid cuddled in my blanket trying to watch the news. Before I knew it one day turned to another and one week turned to one month, one month to one year, one year to five years. They bombed children’s schools, hospitals, markets, weddings, funerals, and families in the safety of their homes. Even after all the air raids I am still not accustomed to it. I still panic and shiver and shake. That is what a war against your country does to you, it changes you and everything you thought you knew about yourself. A war leaves you with battlefield scars even if you were never in the actual battlefield. You will never look at airplanes passing by with an easy heart. You will never leave the house sure it will be there when you come back. You will never know if this is the last time you will see your loved one. Every breath felt and still feels like the very last
It takes courage to move past your grief and into your anger. I was just sad for the first few weeks I was in denial, I could not even process anything of what I was hearing. Of course at this time electricity was shut down and I remember the first time my sister and I left the house, it was a gloomy afternoon we went outside and expected to see no one, like a scene from an end of the world movie, but everyone was out and about and I could not help but smile that there was still hope, there was still a possibility of a better tomorrow. That day we bought the very first radio I had ever seen so we could keep up with the news. I genuinely thought it was the apocalypse. A month later the air raids were so close to our home that we had to evacuate, at that moment and for the first time in my life I understood what fear felt like, nothing prior to that experience could come close to how helpless I felt. Life has a way of teaching you lessons you never thought you would learn. I never thought a time would come where I was the one running for my life and having to choose my most precious belongings in a matter of minutes with the chance of never coming back home. It is scary how close you can get to death and how unprepared you always are. Before 2015 I never really witnessed loss, I never really understood what it felt like to be filled with sorrow, but then I understood how terrifying it is to always be a moment away from losing your loved ones, a moment away from losing a limb, from losing your home. Death is frightening but nothing compares to loss, to grief.
The first forty days of the aggression against Yemen were hard and I was hopeless, but then suddenly on the mark of the fortieth day, the Yemeni army and people’s committee made their first attack against the Saudi regime. Using primitive weapons like scud and tochka because the dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh had bombed all our weapons under American supervision in the early 2000s. So when the time came that we were under attack by over 10 countries led by Saudi and Emirates with the green light from the USA we were left hopeless and helpless. I loathe Ali Abdullah Saleh and nothing in this world would ever change my mind. He made me hate my country, he taught me to look down on my fellow Yemenis. Because of him Yemen has always been below the poverty line, over half the population was a victim of malnutritioning , not once did he build a hospital or a school. Yemen’s public schools are so short in supply that not only do the students bring their own chairs with them, but they also have to come at different timings some attend from 8 am until 12 pm and others from 12pm to 4 pm. It would be acceptable if Yemen was just a desert not a country filled with oils mines in Mareb that the French, Brits, and Americans take for themselves and give the Yemenis who work for them near to nothing. Yemen has the best strategic positioning considering Bab el-Mandeb strait which gives Yemen the ability to control all the ships passing by, but Ali Saleh and his supporters stole it all for themselves giving this country and its people nothing. I will not waste my time in counting his crimes because that would not end. The point is after forty days hope was reignited. Yes we were still being bombed but at least we were trying to fight back we were not as helpless as we were before.
In the mark of one year Yemen was stronger than ever and the strength of my beloved country grew greater and greater, until we now have our own weapons that are up to date and have incredible capabilities 100% made in Yemen. We have our own war crafts, we are now defending our land and our people. Even if it took me five years to understand how much you can love a country I am happy and proud to have been given that chance to stay here for the past five years to see how much the average Yemeni has evolved how his pride has been re-obtained, how he is no longer being belittled and looked down upon as he once was. Through death comes life and through fear comes courage. Five years, half a decade and we have come so far. I hope the following five years enrapture us in freedom, sovereignty, and peace.
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