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Lecture À Voix Haute Texte
Lecture À Voix Haute Texte
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/30/yemenis-living-under-the-
shadow-of-death-by-airstrike
Four years of war has not brought Saudi Arabia any closer to victory, but all
It has started to rain and the angry sky is threatening thunder, but a lone figure is
picking his way through the rubble of Dhamar detention centre in Houthi-
controlled northern Yemen.
His name is Mustafa al-Adel. Although his brother Ahmed, a guard, died here
watch over the ruins. At night he sleeps in the least damaged building. He
doesn’t mind the rain, he says. It has washed away the blood.
“You can see Ahmed’s blue blanket up there,” the 22-year-old said through a
mouthful of the stimulant qat, pointing at the second floor of what used to be the
guards’ quarters. “There were 200 people here but now it’s just ghosts.”
Adel is one of dozens of people the Guardian met on a rare 6,000km journey
areas, who described how more than four years of war have changed their lives
highlands of Yemen’s north that the world’s worst humanitarian crisis has taken
root and the spectres of cholera, hunger and Saudi airstrikes loom.
The overnight attack on Dhamar on 1 September was the deadliest so far this
deposed president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, according to the Yemen Data
Project, a database tracking the war. Even by the standards of a conflict defined
At least 100 people died in what eyewitnesses said were seven strikes that
pulverised the area. It took five days to remove all the bodies impaled on
Dhamar site should have been on the coalition’s no-strike list. It was also an
attack that targeted their own: about half of the prisoners were captured Hadi
soldiers and half were civilians arrested by the Houthis, said a survivor, Ali
Pictures of the burnt and bloody faces of the dead are now on the wall near the
entrance for families to come and identify. In some cases there are no faces left:
just hands.
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“The Red Cross visited us three months ago,” Abasi said. “There is no way the
The coalition denied it had struck a detention centre, saying it had hit a military
Strikes such as those on Dhamar that could constitute war crimes hit northern
Saudi Arabia’s border, is targeted the most. Barely a street in the town of the
same name has been left untouched: the post office, central market and countless
Death comes from above at any time. Over a lunch of chicken, rice and sweet
a restaurant. The diners paid no attention to the whine of the Saudi warplane
The scorched earth strategy has not brought Saudi Arabia any closer to winning
this war. Its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, then defence
backed Houthis took the capital Sana’a, forcing Hadi to flee to Riyadh.
decades-old guerrilla movement. With the help of Tehran, they now possess
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sophisticated drone technology and can launch cross-border rocket attacks deep
into Saudi Arabia, targeting assets such as oilfields, military bases and airports.
television channel, and Houthi battle songs, known as zawamil, are so catchy
even loyalist troops like to play them. The lyrics taunt Prince Mohammed with
Some now call Yemen Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam. But the truth is, without a
steady supply of weapons, vehicles and technical expertise provided by the UK,
US and other western nations, the current stalemate would be even worse for
Riyadh.
Yemenis are well aware of where the bombs that fall on their heads originate
from. Technical information and serial numbers from missile parts that survive
At the bomb and mine clearance agency in Sana’a, weapons parts recovered
from airstrikes glow hot in the sun. Among them are motor parts from four
sensors from cluster bombs – explosives illegal under international law because
large area. The labels say they were made by the US Goodrich Corporation and
manufacture, which could predate the cluster bomb ban, the parts were intended
for use in a bomb or later taken into one. Collins Aerospace, formed after
Goodrich’s parent company merged its subsidiaries, still operates from the
Wolverhampton site.
Aside from waves of airstrikes, life in Sana’a – a city famous for its charming
normal on the surface. The Houthis have done a good job of routing al-Qaida
from their territory and the streets are cleaner and more orderly than anywhere
The relative calm comes at a price: according to Mwatana, one of the only
human rights groups still operating, dissenters are routinely imprisoned and
tortured, and the Bahá’í religious minority have been persecuted as Israeli spies.
The Saudi blockade of Houthi Yemen’s airspace and land and sea borders keeps
the north on a constant knife edge. The Houthi leadership in Sana’a has secured
supply lines overland from Oman, a diplomatic source said, meaning they can
cling on. But ordinary Yemenis are suffering greatly. The markets in Sana’a are
full of produce, but the collapsed economy means food and fuel are now twice
Eighty percent of the population – some 24 million people – are now dependent
on aid to survive. Half of that number are on the brink of famine. The UN says
by the end of the year the combined death toll from fighting and disease will be
Every hospital in the city is overflowing with malnutrition and cholera patients
from families in neighbouring provinces who have scraped together the cash to
says cholera now visits her family every year when the rainy season starts. She
lost her three-year-old girl last summer. Now she is back in al-Sabeen’s cholera
reception tent, praying her two-year-old niece survives. The little girl, Qasima,
was lying on her back gazing blankly at the tent’s ceiling, sweat plastering her
Men are dying too. Green and flowery posters of those killed fighting and
innocents lost to airstrikes cover the walls of homes, businesses, cars and street
surface: “God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curses on the Jews,
Victory to Islam.”
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Sunni Islamic doctrine, over the border in Yemen’s Zaydi Shia lands.
While at failed peace talks their political agenda appears muddled, they have
air campaign have strangled the life out of entire communities, sympathy for the
Houthi cause among many in the north has deepened. Unable to feed their
families as work dries up and inflation soars, some men feel they have no choice
but to join the movement and draw a fighter’s salary of $100 (£81) a month.
Nowhere is the injustice more keenly felt than in Dahyan, the small village in
Saada where a year ago a Saudi airstrike targeted a bus full of little boys on their
way to a school trip, killing 44. A piece of the missile seen by the Guardian
At the site of the attack, 44 small faces now peer down from a banner strung
across the street, next to a mural which says: “America kills Yemeni children.”
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pilgrimage site. Twelve-year-old Yusuf al-Amir almost went on the fateful trip:
Taking his jambiya, a Yemeni ceremonial dagger, from his belt, he cut away a
plastic sheet to reveal the twisted skeleton of the bus, which now rests next to
the children. A Saudi jet roared overhead as he talked about missing his friends.
In the martyrs’ section of the cemetery, there are two freshly dug graves. The
groundskeeper said he was not expecting any green-clad funeral parties today.