Between hope and fear: Yemenis react to Houthi blockade on Saudi Arabia
Sanaa, Yemen – Ammar Saleh, a 32-year-old schoolteacher in Sanaa, watched on Monday as the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, announced a naval blockade on
Sanaa, Yemen – Ammar Saleh, a 32-year-old schoolteacher in Sanaa, watched on Monday as the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. Then, on Wednesday, the Houthis declared they had attacked two Saudi ships – a declaration that they were serious in their intention to impose a maritime embargo on their northern neighbour. The Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of conducting its own blockade on rebel-controlled areas of Yemen, therefore justifying the Houthi attacks. Whatever the arguments, the news has come as a jolt to Yemenis like Ammar, many of whom now believe that a four-year period of relative quiet in the country’s more than decade-long war is about to end. Ammar believes that Sanaa and other Houthi-controlled Yemeni provinces could once again become a battlefield and could be hit with fuel shortages and a worsening humanitarian crisis. “Imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia is not a minor move, and we will not be immune from its repercussions,” Ammar told Al Jazeera. While many civilians are anxious over the fallout of the decision to confront Saudi Arabia, Houthi supporters describe it as a step towards ending what they perceive to be Riyadh’s hegemony in Yemen. Supporters of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, meanwhile, see the Houthi attacks as evidence of the group’s “obedience to Iran’s orders”. ‘Unseen suffering’ Civilians who say they support neither side in the war have expressed fear over what may come next. Abdulla Yahya, a 25-year-old construction worker in Sanaa, said civilian suffering becomes “unseen during the chaos of war”. Abdulla told Al Jazeera that any Houthi-Saudi Arabian military face-off will complicate the lives of everyday people in Yemen and will make “survival a harder task”. “The moment a full-scale war begins, the basics we have today will no longer be available or affordable.
Prices will soar, fuel supply will be disrupted, and work opportunities will decline. Neither side of the conflict will be aware of our suffering,” said Abdulla. Yemen’s warring parties have emphasised their preparedness for war, but Abdulla says he is not. “I wanted to buy an extra cooking gas cylinder and get additional food commodities, such as flour, rice and cooking oil. But I could not afford that. Getting those would cost me about 55,000 Yemeni riyals [$230],” said the father of three. The ongoing escalation risks dragging Yemen back into wider conflict, further compounding a hunger crisis that aid agencies have said is already spiralling. Almost 20 million people in Yemen need humanitarian aid, according to United Nations estimates, and the lack of a political settlement to the conflict continues to add to the complexity. ‘Long overdue’ A sense of euphoria prevailed among Houthi supporters in Sanaa when the group announced the naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. Mohammed Ali, a Sanaa-based 26-year-old Houthi supporter, said that Sanaa will not be subordinate to Riyadh forever, and that the embargo is a reminder to Saudi leadership: “We can hurt you if you insist on harming us. You are not unbreakable.” Ali, a university graduate, argued that Yemen was a sovereign state, and that Saudi leaders had “no right to decide which ship is allowed to sail towards our ports and which plane is permitted to fly in our sky”. “We feel Saudi Arabia is suffocating us. Let us give them a dose of their own medicine. This measure has been long overdue,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera. Mohammed is not worried about a renewed war with Saudi Arabia. “We confronted America, Israel and, before them, the Saudi-led coalition. Now, the kingdom can try its luck in this new round,” he said. A full closure of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, could hamper Saudi oil exports to Asia, particularly in light of the continued difficulty of passage through the Strait of Hormuz due to the US war on Iran.
The BriefWire