At 6am on Saturday 13 August, Ahmad Arfaj, a primary school teacher in Yemen’s Saada governorate, returned home from the local mosque after performing the dawn salah, the first of his five daily prayers. A friend accompanied him to his doorstep.
“I went in to see and greet my family and I brought coffee and we preferred to drink it outside,” Arfaj said. “As I lean ed against the wall, the Saudi warplane hit my home.” His wife, four children and his brother’s wife were all killed .
“The rubble fell on me; one of my legs was broken. I had to crawl to shout for help,” Arfaj said. “I realised that my whole family had become martyrs, the home had collapsed on their heads. I could do nothing for them.”
Data compiled by the Yemen Data Project and published for the first time by the Guardian reveals the number of civilian sites hit – sometimes repeatedly – by Saudi airstrikes in Yemen since the air campaign against Houthi rebels began in March 2015.
To the long-suffering people of Yemen like Arfaj, the figures will not be a surprise. Over the past 18 months they have learned through bitter experience. In Arfaj’s case, a second strike hit the same place within an hour of the first strike, killing other members of Arfaj’s extended family as well as rescuers.
“After an hour, while the people flocked to recover the bodies, the aircraft came back and hit the same place again,” he said of the second strike. Even that wasn’t enough agony for one day in Saada: another airstrike hit a school in the region’s Haydan district, killing 10 students, all aged under 15, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The UK- and US-backed Saudi-led coalition launched its operation in Yemen with the aim of fighting the Houthis and reinstating the president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who had been forced into exile in Riyadh. UN-brokered peace talks this year brought a period of relief to parts of the country, but after they collapsed in recriminations this summer the airstrikes escalated.
Houthi fighters, who have launched indiscriminate shelling in Yemen during the conflict, retaliated with missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, and attempts to hold territory across the border. Armed groups have flourished through the conflict. Forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have allied with the Houthis, while local al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliates have carried out numerous bombings.
According to April Longley Alley, Crisis Group’s Yemen analyst, the conflict is now in a more dangerous phase, and it is civilians who are bearing the brunt. “Yemen is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in the region with over 21 million in need of assistance,” she said. The longer the fighting continues, the more difficult it will be for any government to pick up the pieces.”
Zaid Ali al-Razhi, a 30-year-old Yemeni in Sana’a, said his life had been turned upside down since the conflict began last year and he was homeless after his family’s two houses in Saada were partially destroyed by airstrikes.
“Before, I was studying English and I was about to complete the iBT preparation course,” he said. “The life surrounding us has become a complete mixture of war, raids, suffering, starvation, cluster bombs, destruction, and all the other synonyms you can find for tragedy and pain.” He blamed the Saudis and their international backers, the US and the UK in particular.
Taha Yaseen, the Sana’a-based head of research at Mwatana, a human rights organisation, said the humanitarian situation in Yemen had deteriorated since the conflict began. “Each new day it can be described as the worst ever,” he said. “Death from the sky by the airstrikes of the Saudi-led coalition, death on the grounds by wars of Houthi–Saleh military alliance and their opponents, Isis operations and activities of other extremist groups.”
The conflict has exacerbated unemployment, poverty, disease, fuel shortages and high prices.
Badran Sharah, 28, who is living in Sana’a as a refugee, lost his son and uncle in what he called this “ugly war”. “They died because of internationally banned bombs, cluster bombs,” he said. “People in Yemen suffer from daily massacres committed by Saudi raids. I blame USA, UK , UN, and those who are taking part in Saudi’s aggression, as well as the people all over the world for their silence about what is going on in Yemen. Yemen’s future will be tragedy if the world keeps silent.”
