Introduction

During our tenure in the Republic of Yemen, 1988 - 1994, the country was involved in three major events - in 1990 the unification between the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south and the Yemen Arab Republic in the north - and two wars. First came the Gulf War (Desert Shield and Desert Storm) which resulted in the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis from Saudi Arabia and caused a social and economic crisis in Yemen. Then, in 1994, socialist separatist forces in the southern part of Yemen attempted to break away from the north and a short but deadly civil war ensued. For more on this, see  Unification of north and south Yemen and the Yemen civil war of 1994

Bombs, Ack-Ack and Scuds

Robert Tyabji, Sana'a 1994

We'd retired early the previous night because Sana'a had been in darkness, a precautionary blackout, as tensions between the separatists in the south and the government in the north had reached boiling point and war now seemed imminent.

The next thing I was conscious of was an explosive avalanche of noise which literally threw us out of bed. Crouching on the floor, I realized that jet fighters had just swooped over the house, very low and perhaps at supersonic speed, and anti-aircraft guns were firing continuously close by. Their racket was so loud and jarring it seemed to emanate from inside my skull, and it physically shook us. I found out later that the guns were located in a military compound about 500 meters from our house.

It was just after 6 am. Civil war had begun.

What happened that morning, seconds after the jets tossed us out of bed, is both inspiring and tragic.

The jets had flown in low from Aden, former capital of south Yemen, in a daring dawn raid on Sana'a airport. At that moment the Royal Jordanian morning flight to Amman was on the runway, waiting for clearance to take off. The flight was packed and some of the passengers whom we knew told us later what had happened. It seems that the leader of the attacking squadron noticed the Airbus in the nick of time! The jets swung aside and released their bombs well away from the runway. The Airbus, badly shaken but unharmed, returned to the apron and the passengers were evacuated using the plane's emergency slides.

Click here to read a New York Times report on this.

According to local news reports, the squadron leader was shot out of the air and killed a few moments later, but the others returned safely to Aden.

Sana'a airport suffered some damage, most of the glass frontage had shattered, and the Royal Jordanian plane had to remain parked there for many weeks, waiting for the war to end.

Fearing more air attacks, as well as falling shrapnel and other debris as shelling continued and scud missiles hit the city, Hootoksi and I moved out of our upper floor bedroom and set up temporary sleeping arrangements in the ground floor passage. As an extra precaution, we boarded up the glass in the kamariya above the front door. In an attempt to document the noise of the ack ack and heavy guns I placed a cassette recorder on the roof but in the confusion the cassette was misplaced and sadly I was never able to find it.

Over the next few days, there was a mass evacuation of foreigners and Hootoksi along with hundreds of UN staff and dependents was flown to Amman on a UNWFP transport (that's another story, see below). As a UN security warden, I stayed on till the end of the war while Hootoksi went to her parents in Kuala Lumpur.

All UN staff were then ordered by the UN Resident Coordinator to move out of our homes into the Taj Hotel. While this was intended to keep us safe and contactable, and close to the international press corps who were occupying the same hotel, to me the move seemed inexplicable as we were now concentrated in the tallest building in Sana'a city center, an obvious and soft target! However, as a UN security officer, I had no choice but to comply. Fortunately, an attack never came.

A few days later, I bagged a new assignment in Tanzania and began making preparations to leave for Dar es Salaam.  I didn't know it then, but humankind's most heinous acts were being carried out in Rwanda, and already half a million Rwandans fleeing the violence were flooding into Tanzania.

As the civil war wound down, we were permitted to return to our homes. But I had started packing up the house in preparation for the move to Tanzania so I stayed instead at a house of a friend from Halliburton who very graciously offered to put me up for the duration of my stay in Yemen.

When Dawn Gave Way to Mayhem 

Hootoksi Tyabji, Thursday 5th May 1994, 5.30 A.M.

On the 4^th of May 1994 around 10 PM, the entire city of Sana’a had been plunged into darkness. As power cuts were not the order of the day, this was eerie, and the rumors began to fly of impending bomb attacks from the South. We went to bed troubled, half expecting something to happen; and yet. when it did, we were shocked and stunned as was our cat who flew off our bed with all four paws the in the air! 

We were awakened by the most terrifying, earth shattering noise and we leaped out of bed!  My first thought was, "Its finally happened. The war has begun."  Robert said, "It sounds like ...... and I heard no more because of the sound of returning fire. We ran downstairs, keeping away from the windows because of the fear of the glass shattering, and we stayed in the passageway for the next 4 days with the deafening sounds of war all around us.

Robert was the designated UN warden for our area, so he immediately got on his radio and tried to communicate with the UN emergency coordinator to find out what was going on. All the wardens had been issued radios only a couple of days ago and they had had their first check to see that they were in good working order and to ensure that the wardens clocked in at regular intervals with the UN emergency coordinator. Rob’s radio name ‘Romeo Tiger’ often commanded a chuckle on the airwaves, especially when tensions were running high!

Through the sound of the heavy artillery fire, Rob was able to decipher that there had been a missile attack on one of the presidential palaces located not too far from our house.

All the power and water connections were immediately cut, and the phone lines went dead, but fortunately our telephone continued to work right through the war! I grabbed the phone and tried to call our families. I managed to speak to Judy, my sister-in-law in the US, and later to my mum in Malaysia. They in turn contacted Rob’s folks in Australia, Michel and Farhad in New York, and my sister and Adil in the UK. Our families were assured that the UN had a good evacuation plan in place, and that we would be safe and well looked after.

The gunfire went on continuously for 7-8 hours on that first morning. One of our UNICEF colleagues lived very close to where the Yemen Socialist Party premises were being pounded by tank cannon and automatic gunfire. He could see all this happening outside his window and was able to radio in and give us firsthand information on what was going on. Several buildings surrounding the Palace were partially destroyed and many more were bombed out of existence!

In the evening it was relatively calm, and we went to bed and tried to sleep; but soon we were woken by a deafening noise, and this time I could feel my heart pounding against my chest and the blood rushing to my ears! it was one in the morning and the sky was ablaze with anti-aircraft fire, sonic boom sounds and other frightening noises that echoed around us till morning. As Sana'a is in a basin, and the firing was coming from the hills surrounding it, the noise was magnified and horrific! A Scud missile had been fired and exploded not too far from our house. There was no damage to life as it fell short of its target and landed in an open field.

Sleep for the next 3 days and nights was difficult, and my thoughts were dominated by my family and friends. The darkness augmented the feeling of insecurity and fear, and our UN Coordinator decided to put in motion plans to evacuate dependents and non-essential staff. We were told to pack a bag weighing no more than 5 Kg and to be ready to leave for pre-determined gathering points at short notice. UNICEF asked Robert stay on in Sana'a as he was a senior officer with emergency experience, and the UNICEF Representative was abroad at the time. I would have liked to stay with him but was told this was impossible.

"Romeo Tiger" spent much of the next four days on his walkie-talkie and the phone, keeping his wards informed, comforting, and warning them alternately, and speaking to the outside world. It was a miracle that our phone line remained open through the first few days of the war (I suppose the fact that our landlord was a senior official in the Home Ministry had something to do with it) and soon ours was the only working expatriate phone line in all Sana'a! Rob received call after call from overseas capitals wanting news of their embassy staff and was even able to talk to Michel (who was in New York) who could hear the sounds of heavy gunfire all around us through the phone! We kept in touch with our Dutch neighbors by yelling across the wall, exchanging radio news, BBC for Dutch news! The electricity had been cut since the night before, and we were concerned that our water would run out, so we filled every receptacle in sight. The radios had to be charged; we were fortunate to be living in an embassy area where there were emergency backup generators, so Robert was able to charge his radio at the German embassy nearby.

All our American friends had been evacuated by 5pm on the 6th of May. They flew out on army transport planes that took them to Middle East destinations and onward to the US. We were not able to say good-bye or exchange addresses with any of them!

On the second day of the war in the morning, amidst gunfire, our doorbell rang. Rob went to the gate in a helmet and found Farhad's Yemeni friend Mohammed standing there. In broken English he said he was concerned about our safety and would like to buy us some candles or anything else we may need, as it was dangerous to move about on the streets. He knew our son was away, and he would be pleased to take his place and watch over us.  Rob and I were overwhelmed by this gesture of kindness. Mohammed had risked his life to walk to our home with this offer of help!

Saturday 7th May was Farhad's 19'th birthday; we could not speak to him but were with him in spirit more than we would have been under normal circumstances. That afternoon amidst sporadic gunfire and bombardment, the Mullah who had not been preaching for a couple of days, suddenly started shouting from the loudspeakers in the mosque. We felt this was a good sign and assumed that people were being urged to stop the fighting, but that was not what he was saying at all!  He was the head of the fundamentalist party urging people to attack their southern Yemeni brothers, who in his opinion, were responsible for the war and the suffering! Hearing this made us fearful for our Yemeni friends from the south who suddenly became targets and "the enemy" in Sana'a.

That night there was another Scud attack which fortunately did less damage than it might have. It landed near some shops, destroying them completely and damaging a hospital nearby. Several people were wounded, but we heard that by some miracle there were only two dead.

Sunday 8'th May, we were told that a World Food Program transport plane had been sent to evacuate us. The Yemen government had promised safe passage to all UN staff and their families, and we were asked to report at the UNDP office by 8 AM. Special buses to the airport and armed escorts had been arranged, and though there was some damage to runways, the main one was functioning and was kept busy judging from the number of aircraft moving about. Ours was a huge and ugly Antonov heavy transport plane with drooping wings that looked like it would never get off the ground!

The evacuation process went smoothly and was beautifully executed by the UN emergency coordinator and his team, and the old Russian aircraft did leap into the sky with its sorry load at exactly one in the afternoon on the 9th of May. 

Most of us had never flown in a transport plane, and given that our emotions were charged and battered, nobody spoke and the silence in the aircraft was quite eerie. We boarded through a huge opening in the tail end of the plane and all 220 of us were seated on four benches along the length of it. Two long rows of people were belted in from one end to the other; the other two rows hung on to their fellow passengers as we took off and landed. There were no windows and no toilets on board and the journey to Amman, Jordan, took four hours. At one point my gloom was lifted and I had to suppress a guffaw at the sight before me!

There was a gentleman on my left, a portly middle-aged Arab traveling with several small children who made constant demands on him. He seemed at his wits’ end with the baby in his arms, and his wife shouting instructions from the other end of the plane. “There’s too much formula in the bottle, you must dilute it!” she shouted. The feeding bottle was full to the brim and there was nowhere to drain out some of the milk to dilute it and the baby's screaming was unbearable!

He looked around him wildly and shrugged his shoulders as he shoved the teat of the bottle in his mouth and began sucking till there was space for more water! What a sight! The winded and frantic baby gulped the milk in one go, and immediately vomited everything out over everyone and everywhere! This started a chain reaction of vomiting which mercifully stopped just short of me!

We landed safely in Amman, a bunch of anxious, tired, stressed-out people of all ages, shapes, and sizes. UN organizations were at the airport to meet us, as were the TV crews of CNN and Jordan TV. It was such a relief to see the friendly faces of our UNICEF colleagues who greeted us warmly, organized our visas and took care of other official business. We were driven to a 5-star hotel and every effort was made to take care of our needs and provide for our comfort. In the days and weeks that followed, while we waited to be told what to do next, I came across so many people on the street, in stores, service staff and so on, who had all at one time or another been affected by war. They empathized with us and what we had been through and were always there to comfort and bring hope. 

The worst part of the ordeal of the evacuation was having to walk away from Robert and our Yemeni friends and colleagues. The leaving and not being able to say goodbye. It was an abrupt end to five wonderful years of living and working among friendly, caring, and interesting people. The war was soon over, but our love affair with Yemen and its people is and always will be ongoing.

The Human Side of the War 

Report filed by Robert Tyabji in Sana'a, June 13, 1994

Yemen has earned a new image since international television began reporting the civil conflict. Lighting up television screens across the globe are flashes from tanks, cannon, rockets and other weaponry. Jet fighters scream by. Soldiers in mahwas (Yemeni style "lungi") and rubber slippers hoist thousand-dollar ammunition shells. In just a few seconds of reporting, audiences thrill to the spectacle of fortunes literally going up in smoke. Not exactly the kind of imagery to cause the international community to reach for the chequebook! Especially donors weary of the intransigence of governments.

Yemen is in the Middle East. It has oil. It is fighting a costly civil war. Who would believe that Yemen is poor?

But most people in Yemen ARE poor, desperately so, and getting more impoverished by the minute. Ask anybody on the street. If you can find anyone to talk to, that is.

The second Scud to land in a densely populated part of Sana'a, Yemen's fairy-tale capital citadel, triggered a mass exodus from the city. By the end of the first ten days of the war, an estimated ten thousand foreigners had already left the country. Two thirds of Sana'a's million or so inhabitants are not native Sana'anis - those who could retreat to their home villages and towns wasted no time doing so. Overnight the city was reduced to a mere shell of its old, vibrant self. The reality now is deserted streets, rows of blue shutters. Dark, empty apartments. A ghost town.

To make matters worse, the scarce supply of petrol, reduced to a trickle by the exigencies of war, keeps vehicles off the road. At traffic intersections, red changes to green, but where are the cars? A cruel blow indeed to Yemeni drivers who are accustomed to buying petrol at half the price of drinking water.

Sana's is not alone in its agony. Other missile, bomb and shell targets such as Aden, Zingibar, Lahj, Taiz and Hodeidah, and Damar and Amran where pitched tank battles had raged, suffer also. Tens of thousands of men, women and children, traumatized by the banshee din of war headed for the sanctuary of their ancestral mountain homes. But the people of Aden, under attack for weeks now, are trapped between the mountains and the sea. Their electricity and water supplies, the refinery and the airport, all located in populated areas, are the primary targets of attack. For the Adenis, there is no relief, no hope of escape. Must they fight to the death?

Fatima, age 55, hasn't eaten for three days. She has been in a state of shock since the low-flying jets attacked Sana'a at dawn on May 5'th. The terrible noise from the anti-aircraft emplacements on the mountaintops around the city and from the military camps nearby, saturates her being. The pyrotechnics are indelible images in her mind's eye. The roar of the nightly scuds leaves her trembling, out of control. She is dehydrated. Water only makes her throw up.

The children are terrified. They wake up stiff, wooden. They cling to her at every sound, the rumble of a passing truck, a thud from the construction site next door. Her husband, a driver, waking at 4 am, disoriented, scared, braces himself for the attack he knows must come. Suddenly, like thousands of others, he decides to leave the city. He will take the family to the village.

 His ancestral home is perched on a cliff's edge, a twisting five-hour drive from the city. It is a serene, beloved place, full of memories of childhood and youth. He remembers balmy afternoons spent there in the company of his cousins and uncles, relaxed against the pillows of the mafraj, the qat fat in his cheek, the dusk spectacular in the valley below, the muezzin's distant call to prayer waxing and waning. The house has five rooms, comfortable for a family of eight. Crowded with twelve. Intolerable with twenty four.

His cousins are all there, with their children. Also people he has never seen before. The whole clan seems to have gathered. It is hot, there is no air. The women are crowded into two rooms, the children are everywhere. There is no water, the sheikh has searched for two days for fuel for the pump. The village shop has run out of supplies, especially sugar. The childrens' heads and limbs itch. Lice and scabies thrive on human misery. Perhaps the scuds were not so bad, after all.

The story in Zingibar, capital of Abyan, is quite different. Here, ground battles have raged for weeks. The population is pinned down, cowering under the arcing shells. The din fills the air like concrete. People disappear, blown up at random. The land mines ensure there is no escape.

The town's water system has run dry, the pumps useless without fuel. Tanks and heavy vehicles have destroyed many water pipes. The ageing sewage system is clogged, damaged in parts by the vibrations of war. Stagnant pools are everywhere, the stench unbearable in the soggy heat. A virulent form of diarrhea spreads like wildfire. Life teeters on a razor edge. Death by explosion, death by dehydration, lingering illnesses. And there is always the fear. 

But the people have yet to realize that their real enemy, more than the shells and bombs, is disease. In the end, diarrhea, pneumonia, measles and malaria will likely have killed more children than the explosives. It remains to be seen how this potential tragedy can be prevented, and for how long the suffering will continue.

H.E. Mark Marshall, UK Ambassador in Yemen, 1990-1993

Hootoksi Tyabji

Contrary to first appearances (and, yes, misguided and sensationalist media exposure) Yemeni people are honest, peace loving and devout folk who are happy so long as they are left alone to do their thing, and to chew Qat.

Early on in the Gulf War, H.E. the UK Ambassador in Yemen awoke one morning to an SOS from his office. He was told that an angry mob had collected outside his embassy and were shouting anti-British slogans while protesting UK involvement in the impending Gulf war. The Ambassador, who is an experienced Arabist, immediately jumped into his Range Rover and had his driver take him to the embassy post-haste! As he began his journey, it began raining heavily, but this did not deter the crowds who continued yelling and screaming for sanctions to be lifted so that babies could have milk in Iraq. The driver was nervous and feared for the safety of the Ambassador if the mob got out of control. He thought it prudent to approach the embassy through a muddy back lane. He hadn't gone a few yards when the car got stuck in the mud and the tires began to spin, and the engine stalled. The heavy vehicle was bogged down in the mud and slush, and the more anxious the driver got, and the more he revved the engine, the deeper the tires sank in the mud and slush. The Ambassador turned around to see the crowd surge towards his car, shouting slogans and waving placards and banners. He shut his eyes tight, clasped his hands in prayer and waited to be yanked out and lynched! But the next thing he knew, the crowd had lifted his car with him inside, out of the mud and the driver sped away as they cheered, laughed and clapped waving His Excellency on; and then they began protesting again!