Farea Al-Muslimi and Rafat Al-Akhali write: “For us, the future is lost. There is no hope.” That’s what Ali Ahmad told BBC interviewers who were trying to find out what life was like under the current war in Yemen. Ali comes from Taiz, a governorate that has for months been under siege by the militias of former president of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh, and those of the Houthi rebel movement.

Taiz epitomises the suffering of people across Yemen: as the city suffers not only from the shelling and siege of militias, but also from the airstrikes of the Saudi-led coalition (such as the airstrike targeting a wedding in September and killing more than 130 civilians, according to the UN high commissioner for human rights) and the wider blockade that the coalition is enforcing on commercialand humanitarian shipments to the country.

As the poorest country in the Arab world is collapsing in front of the world’s eyes, a whole generation of Yemeni youth and children are losing their future. The military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen is nearing its seven-month mark, with arms and wide-ranging logistical, technical, and intelligence support from the United Kingdom and the United States and otherwestern allies. This war has resulted in an “nearly incomprehensible” scale of human suffering, according to the UN humanitarian chief. [Continue reading…]