Will South Yemen secessionists succeed in Yemen?

My co-commentary in @trtworld's @The_Newsmakers yesterday: Will South Yemen secessionists succeed in Yemen?

Ten People to Follow in Aden

(c) Amr Gamal, Aden.

Aden has been witnessing dramatic events over the past few days with the situation changing by the hour. Yemen has always been a complicated story. For me, Yemen is only a complicated story because to a large extent media outlets, regionally and internationally, exert no effort to include reliable and relevant Yemeni voices in their reports. Social media is to be thanked for opening a new channel and for providing the space for Yemeni voices to narrate what's happening on the ground from their own local perspective.


A few years ago, I developed a list of Top 20 people to follow in Yemen. Things have since changed. Tweeps come and go. Some deactivate. Some change careers. Some remain active and constantly improve. But as all eyes are on Aden these days, we need a new special list on Aden coverage. The following accounts will bring Aden closer to you, as they have done for me.


There is no specific standard for coming up with this list - except that the people behind these accounts reside in Aden at the moment, bringing a meaningful take on events there.

So, here we go!

1. Osan @OsanBoairan  

I've been following Osan since Yemen's 2011 uprising. He's my top source for anything happening in Aden. His tweets are mainly commentary on the political developments with a large dose of cynicism. Commentary on regional events, both political and cultural are not exempt from Osan's timeline. He could be tweeting on serious political topics and next day tweet on, say, Egyptian celebrities' news. He tweets often about his family and beautiful daughters. And that's what I love about following him - he mixes it up and never bores me.

While working as an accountant, he blogs and tweets regularly during his free time. He only writes in Arabic and sometimes curses, which adds some color to his tweets.

His political stance is pro-Hirak but he's never that extremist or aggressive in expressing his political opinions.

2. Fathi Ben Lazrq @fathibnlazrq + @adenalghad  

Journalist and editor-in-chief of 'Aden Alghad' (Aden Tomorrow) news website, Fathi never distances himself from any story happening in Aden. While his newspaper covers Aden news extensively, he also makes sure to use his own Twitter account to update his followers on his take on events in Aden.

Fathi's political affiliation has not been clear or consistent over the years but that's totally understood given the great pressure and control he works under in Aden, as press freedom is almost zero. Fathi has received death threats several times, according to him unapologetically writing about them on twitter and facebook.

3. Nisma Mansour @NismaAlozebi   

The engineering student, Nisam came to prominence on Yemen-Twitter-community during the battle for Aden in March 2015 when fighting in the city began as Houthi and Saleh forces captured Aden International Airport.

Ever since I've been following Nisma's tweets that I find to be insightful and speak loads about the human side of political developments.

Her blog also reveals aspects of Aden that we don't usually hear about in the mainstream media. Nisma blogs and tweets in English but, sadly, she's not as active as one would like her to be. But we can also find her on Facebook.

4. Saleh al-Obaidi @mrsaleh20001  

Saleh is a photojournalist working with different media outlets. I have never conversed with him, so my comments here are only based on my observations. I've been following Saleh for a couple of years and I admire his passion for documenting how the Hirak's protests and events in Aden are developing.


His tweets and facebook posts are mainly visual; videos and photos - but it's clear he's deeply involved with the Hirak movement. He has been on the front lines of the battlefield taking telling photos which earned him serious injuries last year. After being hospitalized both in Aden and then in UAE, he recovered well and continues to work with his camera.

5. Huda al-Sarari @alsarare2013  

Huda is a hard-core human rights defender. I admire Huda so much that I wrote a long feature on her work, which you can read here on Middle East Eye. Huda tweets in Arabic and she focuses mainly on human rights issues in the city. 

I admire her impartiality, despite the very polarized environment she works in. You can find her on Facebook here.

6. Nashwan Al-Othmani @nalothmani  

Working as Radio Monte Carlo's Yemen correspondent, Nashwan's tweets are mainly about Aden news. His timeline shows reliable updates on developments on the ground. He often publishes posts on Facebook, reflecting on major events.

7. Amr Gamal @_AmrGamal  

Playwright and photographer, Amr Gamal could tweet about anything outside of politics. Despite how Aden is saturated by politics, Amr has managed to keep himself focused on the Arts, Theater, Cinema and Photography. 

His work archive has few plays written and directed by him for both local and international audiences in Yemen and Germany. I am lucky to call him a friend. Make sure to check his Facebook updates too.

8. Ahmed Shihab al-Qadi @ahmedalqadi001  

An engineering student who finds photography a hobby and a means of expressing his political opinions. Ahmed's camera is always with him as he participates in every protest and political event for the Hirak movement in Aden. 

He captures beautiful photos and I've always used his photos on my blog ever since I discovered him through Amr Gamal's suggestions to me. He's not super active on Twitter but he is definitely so on Facebook.

9. Vlogger Mazen al-Saqaf  

Mazen vlogs from Aden. Yes, that's right. He vlogs on social and cultural topics. His videos are interesting, funny and super local - meaning he's so chilled and not changing his Yemeni accent so "the other" could understand him. 

I love his simplicity and non-pretentious writing. His channel is in Arabic and you can find it here.

10. Ahmed Abdulaziz @_ahmedaziz  

Ahmed is a poet, I assume, but he's definitely a photographer capturing moments in Aden that your TV or newspaper won't show you. He has a unique style and his photos are about small details in Aden. Sadly, he's not active on Facebook or Twitter but he is active on Instagram.

Despite Yemen War Devastation Toll for Children, a Yemeni Man Organises First Ever TED Talk for Kids

This piece was published on Aug. 2017 on my HuffPost blog. And as I received an email today that HuffPost blogs seem to shut down soon, I am reposting the article here on my blog to archive it. 

___________________________

Ahmed Sayaghi, leader of coming TedxKids@Sanaa, “I hope we can learn from our children speakers’
stories the lust for life and resilience.”

It is not like I am ignoring the devastation of the war but it’s exactly because of the war we had to organise Yemen’s first ever TEDxKids@Sanaa conference. It’s important to amplify children’s stories and reflect on children’s innocence in the intense political polarisation in Yemen. In light of the war, I think children have a magical influence on grown-ups who are often with rigid points of views, boxing others in. These kids will voice out stronger messages for peace.

The idea came to my mind last year and I applied to get the license from TED Global and we had it. Then, I was so lucky to find a team of young men and ladies - who are as young as just newly-graduated from high school or just recently entered university - who are helping in organising the event. This team is doing marvellous work, despite all the hardships.

We are in the process of preparation and organisation. Against all the odds, we aim to officially conduct the event in the Universal Children’s Day coming November. At the beginning, it was not easy to find sponsorship. We were covering expenses from our own pockets until we eventually found sponsors who believed in our cause and were willing to support us. However, I would say that the main challenge we faced was the widening political polarisation I mentioned earlier. Given the failed state we are in, any activist is at risk in doing his/her activism. We are often harassed and interrogated: who is funding you? What is your agenda? We are told, “this is time of war and not time for you to invade our kids’ minds with western values. Kids should learn Jihad and not to speak at Ted talks.” The team has gone through lots of intimidation because we don’t have any political and influential party to rely on, as we aim to be nonpartisan. Still, we are determined to hold the event.

This is not my first participation in co-organising a Ted Talk in Yemen. I was also part of the team which organised TEDXSanaa in 2012, 2013 and 2014, as a volunteer or/and in charge of the fundraising and selection of speakers. Even though I work as a pharmacist, I’ve developed a great interest in social activism right after Yemen’s 2011 uprising. I was attracted to Ted Talks in Yemen because I wanted to establish events in Yemen with international standards.


For me, TedxKids is a continuation of the previous Ted Talks we had, but with a greater dose of resilience. The event goes with a theme and hashtag #صغار_كبار (Young but Mature) and we have three subcategories of the speakers’ presentations. A) Kids’ educational aspirations; like how they aspire to become pilots, doctors, etc. B) Kids’ untold talents; like singers, dancers, painters, etc, C) Kids’ stories of survival after being under the rubble - and this is the most heartbreaking but moving talks. The team is also keen to have inclusiveness in the type of children speakers. So; for instance, you will hear in TedxKids from kids from the internally displaced community in Yemen and from Yemen’s marginalized society (Muhamashin) too.

Until the official event happens, last month, we had our inaugural event titled, “The Ambassadors” in which we wanted the attending children to understand how they were the ambassadors of Yemen’s future. It was the phase when our team met with more than 500 applicants children and we are in the process of selecting the final list of speakers. We were fascinated to have about 1,700 audience attending that day. I’ve been pondering on, given the despair, suffering and pain we are going through in Yemen, I hope we can learn from our children speakers’ stories the lust for life and resilience.

My Turned Down Article by a Major American Newspaper, On Yemen's Civil Society

Days after my attendance at the Committee to Protect Journalists' Awards Ceremony in November, I received an email from a major American newspaper -whose name I prefer not to reveal-, asking me to write a column in which I would reflect on receiving my award, my trip and meetings in the US. I gladly accepted their request. So, we discussed the theme of the column in an email or two; then, we agreed to it. So, I would begin writing and I would finish and send the article to them right away. I waited for few days with no reply. So, I sent a reminder email. Then, I was told very politely that my piece wouldn't be published.

I was very disappointed. I wanted to know why, but I was so busy in that week and the following weeks as I was in a transition, locating myself from Sweden to Egypt, and I never asked them why. Now that my days seem less hectic, I thought about the article last night and how it'd be useless to ask the newspaper for the reasons of why my article was turned down. However, I thought, "I could publish the article as it was, on my blog, anyhow, right?"

So, voila!

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My award acceptance speech in November at the International Free Press Award ceremony in New York was one of the most difficult writings I have ever done. I didn’t know how it was even possible to summarize the massive atrocities committed in my country, Yemen, in a three-minute-long speech.





Understanding the gravity of these atrocities, the New York-based organization, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in fact decided to choose Yemen of all the countries in the turbulent Arab region this year to put a spotlight on the forgotten war in the country and the risks Yemeni journalists bear while reporting. Because three-minute-long speech was obviously not enough, CPJ arranged for me a two-week advocacy tour, one week in D.C. and another week in New York.





As I had meetings with policy advisor Christine Lawson at the Department of State, Senator Chris Murphy, other Senate staff, media and human rights organizations, I was thinking of how the Travel Ban (which I managed to defeat after being rejected for the US visa entry twice) could have barred me from actualizing this opportunity. If it wasn’t for the relentless support I had from CPJ, I would not have been able to have one-on-one meetings with these influential people and discuss the U.S. disastrous foreign policies in Yemen.


During our meeting, going beyond the Saudi-Iran-proxy-war-in-Yemen questions, Sen. Murphy’s first question to me was, “how is life like for your family in Yemen, Afrah?” For a moment I forgot that I was in the presence of a politician, but rather a friend. “Every time I call my mother in Sana’a, she’s busy going to a funeral or coming back from a funeral of relatives and friends,” I replied, “in fact, yesterday, she messaged me, ‘all entries to Yemen are closed. We will die, we will die.’”

Nov. - 2017 - Meeting Sen. Murphy at his office in DC, with CPJ's team. 

I woke up, reading a message from my family in Sana'a, "All entries to Yemen are closed. We will die, we will die." #OpenAccessToYemen #افتحوا_منافذ_اليمن

— Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser) November 6, 2017

A couple of days before I met Sen. Murphy, the Saudi-led coalition announced closing all entry points to Yemen, in retaliation to a Houthi-fired missile hitting close to Riyadh airport –what Riyadh claims to be an Iranian-made missile and; thus, with the total blockade it aimed to stop arms transfers from Iran to the Houthis. Not long after my meeting with Sen. Murphy, I found out that he had made a strong testimony, condemning the Saudi-led coalition’s total blockade. I hope that my meeting with him and the Yemen suffering he heard about had something to do with his testimony.






Even though I am an independent Yemeni voice, I consider myself part of the collective Yemeni civil society that emerged in the wake of Yemen’s 2011 uprising – not the traditional organizationed civil society, but rather the space in which young people met, interacted, and voiced their grievances and demands. We are perhaps an extension of Yemen’s historic civil society, but we are certainly an untitled Yemeni political component which was tired of an old, undemocratic and corrupt regime whose energy sparked an uprising against the 30-year old rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.


As heartbreaking photos of skeletal malnutritioned Yemeni kids and child soldiers fill news media outlets, it’s a reminder that about half of Yemen’s 28 million population are children, teenagers and young adults. That also means that 2011’s protesters who impressed the world with their peaceful movement and who first had taken to the streets, (including myself,) from Sana’a, to Taiz, to Hudaydah and other cities were mostly of young men and women.


While my generation was trying to make the impossible possible, the U.S. administration, along with the United Nations and Gulf Cooperation Council rushed to contain the youth uprising and disrupted what was naturally occurring on the ground replacing it with a power transfer deal. The U.S., in particular, failed to recognize Yemeni youth’s political aspirations and became trapped in what regional powers dictated and wanted to see in Yemen. During the ensuing years, the U.S. continued to approach Yemen through the eyes of Saudi-Iran rivalry geopolitics and dismissed the potential in the emerging alternative Yemeni civil society leadership.


Nonetheless, Yemen’s civil society of individuals and groups continued to be engaged. While I have always been passionate about documenting Yemeni stories, my fellows at Sana’a Center care about policy-analysis, Resonate Yemen focuses on youth’s civic empowerment, the Mwatana organization sets issues of human rights and justice as its priority, Basement organization promotes cultural empowerment and the list goes on.


Even though CPJ chose me as a face representing the struggle facing independent Yemeni journalists, I believe I am one drop in the ocean of the many stories of my Yemeni generation’s struggle and thirst for democracy, social justice and freedom of expression –which in many ways echo American values.


The value of Yemen’s civil society affirms itself as it was one of the key spaces in which people organized and mobilised each other to express Yemen’s 2011 uprising. Had I not joined this platform in 2011 and taken the action which I couldn’t find in Yemen’s political and tribal system, I wouldn’t have had the guts to find my voice. While I appreciate CPJ’s recognition, it’s crucial the U.S. recognizes the political agency among Yemen’s civil society and the constructive role they can play, importantly, in any potential peace process and post-war Yemen.


Current policies; such as, imposing a Travel Ban preventing voices from addressing the American political leadership and offering a blank cheque to the Saudi-led coalition in its war in Yemen would not get us anywhere except towards more destruction and instability in the region, which derails the war on terror. Yemen’s vibrant civil society, still persisting against all the odds. It’s never too late for the U.S. to support the rainbow in the midst of a storm, the Yemeni civil society.

Yemen: 2017 in Review

A displaced woman (Malkah Ahmed Saleh) with her daughters sitting at their
temporary home (camp). (Photo: UNICEF/Moohi Al-Zikri)

*A U.N. official warned days ago that, “Yemen could be the worst humanitarian crisis in 50 years.” As 2018 begins, these words reflect the increasingly deteriorating unspeakable human suffering in Yemen, after the UN had been calling Yemen throughout last year as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

The poorest Arab nation with a population of around 25 million has been sent into destitution after nearly four years of war. 2017 has been a year of utter despair in light of countless human rights atrocities committed on multi-fronts; from the Saudi-led coalition to Saleh-Houthis’ forces and the U.S. counter-terrorism military operation, all sharing responsibility for creating unspeakable human suffering in Yemen. However, the killing of Saleh at the end of 2017 marks a historical transition that’s going to drastically change Yemen’s political map for years to come.


Human Suffering


Saleh’s violent death gives a glimpse into the gruesomeness of this war. Both combatants and noncombatant innocent civilians are caught up in the violence. While Houthis’ (and Saleh’s for a certain time, until his death) forces in Taiz continued their indiscriminate shelling or, as described by the UN Human Rights Office, the “unrelenting shelling,” against civilian inhabited areas for about three years, resulting in a terrible death toll, the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes since 2015 did not cease to hit non-military populated areas across many parts of Yemen. In 2017, markets, a migrant boat, a local inhabited hotel, among many other non-military targets were hit. The glaring example last year, however, was the story of the five-year-old Bouthina who survived an attack in August by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes hitting an apartment building in Sana’a, killing all her family.

The Yemen Data Project reveals that since 2015 nearly one-third of Saudi air raids hit non-military sites in Yemen. To rub salt into the wound, 2017, in particular, was when more US strikes hit Yemen than the past four years combined, with 125 strikes, under the U.S. war-on-terror military operations. Another glaring example of that was the U.S. Special forces’ first raid in Yemen’s al-Baydah province under U.S. president, Donald Trump, end of January 2017, killing dozens of women and children.

In parallel, Yemenis face a humanitarian catastrophe as the country's infrastructure is almost totally destroyed and humanitarian operations don’t have full access to some of the hardest hit communities in Yemen, following the Saudi-led coalition imposing a siege, in retaliation to a Houthi-fired missile hitting close to Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh airport in November. Despite progress in Saudis promising to open Houdaidah port and letting Aden port open, the humanitarian situation seems to be only worsening, proven by the UN’s recent announcement of the largest-ever emergency relief allocation - $50 million for UN aid-operations to come forward in 2018. This doesn’t reflect a success but rather an indication of how desperate the humanitarian situation is.

The current number of reported civilian casualties seems illogical given the conflicting reports from the U.N. that are not matching the scale of human suffering on the ground. More than a year ago, a UN official revealed that 10,000 civilians have been killed in Yemen but another recent UN report claimed that only 5,000 civilians have been killed since March 2015. As widespread famine threatens millions of lives, there is a new outbreak of disease, diphtheria, in addition to cholera; that’s probably the worst outbreak the world has ever seen, ripping more than 2,000 lives and reaching one million suspect cases. Also, UNICEF has been reporting since the beginning of 2017 that every 10 minutes a child dies in Yemen. In a situation like this, looking like the apocalypse, reports failed to match the real death toll throughout 2017.

While Yemenis are still counting the dead, the only slight of progress ever made in September 2017 was the establishment of an independent investigation committee by the UN Human Rights Council into the war crimes, thanks to great pressure and advocacy work done by international and local Yemeni Human Rights organizations since 2015. This is significant because campaigning clearly pays off and local and international civil society efforts in Yemen do matter. Nonetheless, the committee is due to begin its work later this year.



Yemen without Saleh


By December 2017, a political earthquake was to hit Yemen. Saleh’s death at the hands of the Houthis marked a violent end for an era and a defining point in Yemen’s political map. As ensuing days warring parties’ military operations intensified, Saleh’s death posed two critical aspects. One is that, whether Saleh genuinely desired to initiate negotiations away from Houthis or him forseeing the deadly path of his alliance with the Houthis, it’s confirmed today that Houthis’ politics are driven by violence.

The other aspect is, in spite of Houthis’ violent politics, Saleh’s absence has created for the first time in the course of Yemen’s nearly four years of war, one single centralized power in the north part of Yemen; that’s in the hands of the Houthis. Now more than ever, there has to be a regional and international political will to face this centralized power, reinvent a political solution and resolve the conflict.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen as in 2017 alone, both key international allies to Saudi Arabia; the US and the UK have found Yemen's war to be a lucrative business, profiting massively from the financial rewards of their arms sales to Saudi Arabia. With a tragic optimism, let us hope 2018 would bring the political will to end the Yemen war.

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*This article was first written for and published in Open Democracy, January 8, 2018. 

Is a Political Solution Still Possible in Yemen?

Photo: Tribesmen loyal to the Houthi movement hold their weapons as they attend a gathering to mark 1000 days of the Saudi-led military intervention in the Yemeni conflict, in Sanaa, Yemen December 21, 2017.
REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

*The end of Saleh-Houthi alliance marks a new chapter in Yemen’s intractable conflict. Two weeks after Saleh’s death, warring parties intensified their military escalation, increasing an already abominable human cost. Despite Saleh’s legacy of subversive tactics and coercion, his death undermines efforts to resolve the conflict. The Houthis, an irrational movement lacking in political experience, make for a highly emotional and unreliable party at the negotiating table. With the passing of Saleh, the ultimate pragmatist with longstanding political and diplomatic ties both locally and internationally, an opportunity has passed with him. In a post-Saleh Yemen, the question remains: is a political solution still feasible?

The most serious issue with the negotiation effort is its absence for more than a year. Days before his death, Saleh presented himself as a negotiator, expressing his readiness for talks with Saudi Arabia. Had he survived, those talks would have materialized through the UN framework, UNSC resolution 2216, which called on Saleh to change his destabilizing action, facilitate disarmament of the Houthis, and return to the National Dialogue Conference’s outcomes. Since his death, the UN Security Council has not passed an amended resolution in line with the recent developments; it instead had a closed-door meeting on the situation and simply called for de-escalation.

With the apparent lack of urgency in reinventing the political solution, on-the-ground fighting has only escalated and new emerging alliances appear to herald further military escalation. Despite its necessity, discussion about a new political solution to the conflict seems premature. Not only has the increased appetite for military competition undermined the prospects for a negotiated solution, but so does the Saudi-led coalition’s flawed tactical approach that aims to unify Yemen’s local factions against the Houthis.

While neither Saudi nor the Houthi camps can claim military superiority, the Houthis have gained significant military strength over the course of the war. After overtaking Sana’a in September 2014 with Saleh’s support, the Houthis captured valuable material from the disoriented national army. Emboldened by their initial victories, Iranian support, and lust for total control, the Houthis met any dissent with violence. Saleh’s betrayal in their eyes justified his undignified execution—and the subsequent crackdown on anyone allied with him. Local press reports also describe Houthi threats and shelling of dissident and pro-Saleh tribes.

Operating on a winner-take-all mentality, the Houthis’ lack of sophistication and nuance has consequently undermined local tribal diplomacy in resolving domestic conflicts. With little regard for even local negotiations, the chances they might engage with international negotiators in good faith appear unlikely.

On the opposing side, a key member in the Saudi-led coalition has taken advantage of the new normal. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken steps to realign itself with an old enemy, the Islah political party (a Yemeni version of the Muslim Brotherhood), in the fight against Houthis. This marriage of convenience comes as a sequel to Saleh’s short-lived marriage of convenience with his old enemy, the Houthis. This latest shift suggests that the Saudi-led coalition aims to unify Saleh’s General People’s Conference (GPC) forces, Yemen President Abdrabbo Mansour Hadi’s forces, the Southern Hirak’s forces, and Islah to counter the Houthis. All these factions, however, hold deep historical animosities towards each other, which threatens the effectiveness of such mobilization.

Such marriages of convenience between Yemen’s different factions have allowed each to survive in a highly volatile political climate. Each party reorders its own interest, depending on the political and military dynamics. If any lesson is to be learned from Saleh’s death, however, it should be the eventual collapse of these loose alliances and their potential to backfire.

Given the current configuration, the conflict in Yemen will not likely end in a formal negotiated settlement through the same existing UN framework born out of the National Dialogue and previous UN resolutions. The nearly four years of civil war and Saudi-led military intervention have exacerbated unresolved animosities between Yemen’s different factions. Saleh had killed the godfather of the Houthi movement, Hussein Bader al-Din al-Houthi, which partly motivated his assassination. Islah is asked today to come to good terms with the remaining GPC forces, despite a desire to retaliate for GPC hostility against the party during Saleh’s alliance with Houthis. Southern forces are asked to be the backbone of the anti-Houthi fighting force but still harbour a separatist streak. Any peace effort that dismisses the growing divisions and historical grievances is doomed to fail. A political solution must prevail eventually, but only if it seriously considers these old and newly born challenges.

While warring parties are reluctant to lay down their weapons, people in Yemen face widespread famine and an unprecedented cholera outbreak. A tougher international approach to finding a political solution in Yemen could nevertheless still help avert even greater tragedy in Yemen. There is both a moral and strategic interest in stabilizing Yemen.

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*This article was first written for and published in The Atlantic Council, January 3, 2018. 

'From tree to cup': A Yemeni entrepreneur's coffee dream is brewing

Hussein Ahmed , CEO of Mocha Hunters, aims to make high-quality Yemeni coffee
and export it to overseas markets (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters).

Hussein Ahmed has been CEO of Mocha Hunters in war-ravaged Yemen for over a year. His goal is to make high-quality Yemeni coffee and export it to overseas markets. This sounds like an impossible task considering the Saudi-led coalition's blockade, but Ahmed has already started to sow the seeds of his endeavours.

“I don’t find my passion unusual. Yemeni coffee is Yemen’s national treasure and that should be any Yemeni’s concern: to pursue fostering this plant no matter what it takes.”

Hussein Ahmed fell in love with coffee as a child, when he would visit coffee
farmers with his father (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters).

Yemeni beans are regaining popularity as some of the best in the world. The earliest cultivation of coffee was in Yemen, where it was given the Arabic name qahwa, from which the English words coffee and cafe both derive.

In the 1400s, the first coffee shipments began from Mocha port on Yemen’s Red sea coast, which was named after the tasty variety of coffee bean. The port became the centre of the world’s coffee trade. Coffee was especially favoured by the Sufis in Yemen who drank it to help them concentrate and stay alert, even during their rituals.

Yemeni beans are regaining popularity as some of the best in the world (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters).

According to Ahmed, the chocolatey bean includes four varieties - udaini, burai, tofahi and dawairi - which grow at a high altitude in a dry climate, tended to by farmers with vast experience who have been cultivating the beans for centuries.

The 37-year-old's journey in developing Yemeni coffee stems from having been immersed in coffee farming since childhood. Ahmed, who was born and brought up in Sanaa, had many relatives and family friends who owned coffee farms around the capital. As a child, his father would usually take him to visit them and that’s when he started to fall in love with coffee.

Yemeni farmers have vast experience in coffee cultivation as they have been doing it for
centuries (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

In September, Ahmed succeeded in shipping the first season's harvest through Aden airport to Saudi Arabia, and then to the US. At the time, the blockade was partially imposed on entry points in Yemen, while Aden airport was open. In the first shipment, Mocha Hunters sent about two tonnes of coffee to Oakland, California, with one kilo costing about $150. It is unclear if the blockade on Yemen will still be in place when the next shipment is due in March 2018. In the meantime, Ahmed is busy taking care of this season's planting, while preparing for the opening of his first cafe in Sanaa. He has not set a fixed date yet but is hoping things will soon calm down in the city.

On 4 December, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed in a roadside gunfight in the capital Sanaa, after switching sides in the civil war. Ahmed says that this has not affected his business. He explains that the state of war and not the death of one political leader is what is affecting most Yemenis, including him.

Earlier last month, the Saudi-led coalition completely blocked ports and airports after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired from Yemen towards its capital Riyadh. The blockade was eased after three weeks, but this had little affect as Yemenis continue to suffer from food, fuel and medicine shortages amid a cholera outbreak, in a country which depends mostly on imports. A de facto blockade has been imposed around Yemeni waters since 2015 by forces belonging to the Saudi led-coalition.

“The blockade did not only make it difficult for us to ship our products abroad, but it has also made production expenses extremely costly,” Ahmed tells Middle East Eye. “With extreme shortages, the fuel we need for farming, watering and transporting is very costly, but we are determined to forge on.”

The Saudi-led blockade on Yemen made shipping products abroad difficult and
made production expenses very costly (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

As a result of the naval blockade, the country is still struggling with fuel shortages, causing prices to almost double. "The main hurdle we faced was the aerial and naval blockade imposed on Yemen which leads to having high costs to run the farms, and extremely difficult and costly ways to export our products abroad,” Ahmed explains.

A 2016 report from Yemen’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation shows that the war has led to the closure of 95 percent of private companies across Yemen because of a loss of clients, lack of fuel, state insecurity, destruction and increasingly high costs.

Mocha Hunters works closely with about 20 Yemeni farmers (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

Yet Mocha Hunters was still determined to work closely with about 20 farmers, planting, processing, harvesting, and roasting coffee, or as Ahmed describes it, “from tree to cup”. "It was important for me to have the names of each farmer we worked with printed on the packets of the sold coffee goods." 

In 1997, Ahmed went to the UK as a foreign exchange high school student. He attended English language courses and a vocational training school where he learned software development. While there, Ahmed's interest in coffee grew. 

One kilo of Mocha Hunters coffee costs about $150 dollars (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

“In the UK, my friends and I used to have our favourite cafe which we never called a cafe but rather 'our temple'," he recalls, laughing. "The cafe [was] our daily meeting point, having Yemeni, Brazilian and other types of coffee every day. We didn’t let any day go by without coffee.”


In 2001, Ahmed met his now ex-wife who is of Japanese descent in the UK. She encouraged him to visit Japan and opened his eyes to how the country was one of the world’s top importers of green coffee. This inspired him to act as a bridge between Japan and Yemen.

While living between Japan and Yemen, he began meeting Yemeni coffee farmers regularly and learning all about pure Yemeni coffee. In 2009, he became an independent coffee wholesaler and opened a coffee shop in Yemen, eyeing Japan as his main market.

In 2009, Ahmed and his wife moved to Japan. By 2011, Ahmed opened his first cafe in Tokyo called Mocha Coffee, serving only Yemeni coffee. It was full of customers and attracted media attention.

Ahmed attributes the success of his cafe to the appreciation that the Japanese have for quality and the personal touch.

For Hussein Ahmed, it is important to have the names of each farmer he worked with
printed on the packets of the sold coffee goods (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

“I worked hard in bringing quality coffee from Yemen to my cafe and it was important for me to have the names of each farmer we worked with printed on the packets of the sold coffee goods or even mentioned in the menu. For example, one could get ‘Ismaili coffee’ or an ‘Alghayoul coffee'."

While his business was booming, his marriage ended in divorce. In 2012, he left the Japanese cafe behind and went back to Yemen to pursue his dream of establishing a coffee business.

When he arrived back in Yemen, the country was in the midst of political upheaval. Ahmed was not worried, however, because the coffee trade had survived past conflicts and economic hardships. Despite the deteriorating economy and an unemployment rate of around 60 percent among youth, Ahmed was determined to pursue his dream.

Hussein Ahmed believes Yemen's coffee is its 'hidden oil' and he has faith in its quality and
durability (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

“I knew for sure that while Yemen’s economy was crumbling, Yemeni coffee was [the country's] hidden oil,” he says.

In 2014, Ahmed went to Washington to attend an annual coffee conference run by the Specialty Coffee Association of America. As he was about to return to Yemen, the civil war broke out and airports were shut down. With no place to go, Ahmed stayed in the US. Expecting the war to end soon, Ahmed did odd jobs to pay the bills like working as an Uber driver and selling mobile phones in a shop.

“I had a rough experience living in the US over two years, and all that time I couldn’t get coffee out of my mind,” recalls Ahmed.

Hussein Ahmed believes that quality is more important than quantity and uses traditional
methods to bring this out (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

In 2016, he decided to return to Yemen in the heat of the civil war. “People I know in the US thought I was crazy to leave the US and go back to a war, but I was absolutely not afraid to go back to Yemen during the war. I had faith in Yemeni coffee’s durability [in] midst of crises. Our national history shows us how conflicts in Yemen come and go, and people in Yemen stand resilient, no matter what,” says Ahmed.

He succeeded in securing a seed fund of $150,000 from a Silicon Valley programme and officially registered Mocha Hunters in the US, before returning to Yemen, where he faced a bleak economic reality.

Hussein Ahmed has taught coffee farmers new skills such as cupping and coffee grading (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

The hashtag #YemenCoffeeBreak circulated through a social media campaign in 2015 led by the Small and Micro Enterprise Promotion Service, a national body. Wesam Qaid, its executive director, was impressed by Ahmed and his work.

“He has given farmers reasons to be optimistic,” says Qaid. “Ahmed didn’t only introduce farmers to speciality markets which have made their incomes double, but he has also taught them new skills such as cupping - a method to measure the quality of the coffee - and coffee grading.”

Hussein Ahmed believes that coffee brings people happiness and he will 'pursue fostering this plant
no matter what it takes' (Photo courtesy of Mocha Hunters)

“It was important for me to work closely with the farmers and enhance their practices,” Ahmed says, “because I wanted them to pay more attention to producing quality over quantity. I introduced more traditional techniques, using dry bed methods at night and utilising ‘moisture-level measurement’ machines which I brought from the US to measure the level of sugar and moist[ure] in the beans.”

“Despite the misery around us, I believe coffee is a source of happiness for many,” concludes Ahmed. “This plant has survived for centuries and it will survive this conflict.”

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*This feature was originally wrote for and published on Middle East Eye, 11th Dec. 2017. 

Between Despair and Hope: a Yemeni Entrepreneur’s Story in Sana’a

Saeed Alfagieh, 27, founded “Ana Mehani” in Sana’a end 2015,
after winning the first place at a 2014 entrepreneurship contest.

*While the surrealistic and tragic events in Yemen spin us all around, I need to take a moment to tell one story, just one personal story, from Sana’a, about defiance-pain-and-more-pain-despair-and-resilience (yes, just like that, in that order, all linked in a row, because that’s how my family and friends I talk to in Sana’a feel).

* * * *

When Forbes did a few months ago a feature on this inspiring young Yemeni man, Saeed Alfagieh, I believed I had my new hero. Despite a great deal of obstacles, Saeed developed his company “Ana Mehani” midst of the raging war in Sana’a, earning a name among the 100 best Arab startups for 2017 by World Economic Forum.





Saeed Alfagieh, 27, founded “Ana Mehani” in Sana’a end 2015, after winning the first place at a 2014 entrepreneurship contest and obtaining a financial support. Ana Mehani is an off-and-online social labor and marketplace platform that aims to generate jobs opportunities while the country is suffering from about 80% unemployment rate. So far, it covers 6 Yemeni governorates, including Sana’a - it receives daily more than 300 applications and has created more than 40,000 job opportunities.


One of Ana Mehani’s old videos interviewing workers benefiting from their services:



I contacted Saeed once the Forbes feature was published to tell him how he was a hero to me. He told me about the horrific environment he and his team operate in. He had lost many friends under the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes in Sana’a and yet he refused to give in to despair.

Saeed explained to me how Ana Mehani had to shift its focus and meet the war-related jobs demands; for example, whenever some people’s homes were partially damaged by the shelling, airstrikes and other war-related violence, or whenever some displaced people needed transportation and delivery for their belongings - his team stepped in and linked them with vetted community-based workers. Schools, houses and organizations buildings impacted by the air-strikes all found his services to be a necessity.

With about 10 members, Ana Mehani team aims to find job opportunities midst of the raging war in Yemen.

I wanted to write about Saeed from my own perspective, other than Forbes’ one, so I pitched to my editors. I had an initial green light from my editor at Al Jazeera English. So I wrote the piece. I sent it. My editor kept me waiting for about a month with no feedback. Then, I received a reply of an apology about not publishing the piece. The reply also included a note of how they prefer stories only from “the ground.”


I swallowed my frustration. And I tried to vent and tweet about it:

One of my editors just told me she wants my story to be from the ground. I wondered if she knew that Houthis in Yemen are the second abductor of journalists in the world after ISIS! 🤔

— Afrah Nasser 🇾🇪 (@Afrahnasser) October 8, 2017

Months passed by. Saleh was killed on Monday and the capital, Sana’a continues to be engulfed in flames. The fierce fighting between Houthi forces and pro-Saleh forces is destroying all aspect of life in Sana’a. After calling my mother, relatives and friends in Sana’a to check on them, I was thinking last night of Saeed. So I called.


Saeed greeted me with a tired voice.


“We are hanging on. We are working from home now as our office is right at where the clashes happen and I assume it became destroyed,” tells me Saeed, “no doubt, the current situation is not a reasonable working environment, although there are still high demands for jobs and services.”


Saeed voice becomes more tired when he tells me how he lost many international opportunities, in attending conferences and networks abroad. The blockade imposed on entry points to Yemen has crushed his dreams of enhancing his network and skills. “It kills my soul not being able to realize my dreams,” says Saeed.


We pose for seconds as if we mourn. In a helpless attempt to fill the silence, I ask Saeed, “which period was more difficult to deal with, business-wise? During the Saleh/Houthi vs. Hadi/Saudi fronts or during today’s events?”


“My team and I have a strong will to cope with whatever happens. We can see that there are increasing demands for our work, as the war rages on. However, today, the skyrocketing fuel prices are killing us and the Yemeni money exchange rate to dollars has jumped to 442 YR. This is leading us to … I don’t even have a word for it.”


“Are you still hopeful about the future,” I ask Saeed. “I have to be hopeful because I am alive - and I can’t wait for things to stabilize a little bit so we could scale up our work,” he replies.

_________________________________________________
*This piece was originally published on the Huffingtonpost on the 8th of Dec. 2017.