Hamida Wafi, 50, lost her only tent, her children’s food, warmth and bedding after a very cold night and the suffering she went through with the rain and winds that lasted for long hours.
Displaced Hamida, who hails from the Harib Nehm district, east of the capital, Sana’a, since 2018 AD in the As-Suwayda camp, north of Ma’rib governorate (which houses more than 1,800 displaced families from different Yemeni regions, according to the statistics of the Displaced Persons Administration). According to Hamida, the rain and strong winds turned their night at the beginning of this month into a cold night. “We lived in the rain and strong winds that cut the tents and wet the warmth, bedding and food, and we slept in the open.” According to Hamida, she did not receive any aid from the humanitarian organizations or the concerned authorities.
Yemen is receiving heavy rains, which the country’s meteorological centers have warned of, which is witnessing war and massive displacement in different regions. Marib governorate hosts the largest number of displaced people in the country, where 194 camps for the displaced are established, while it hosts more than two million displaced people, including children and women.
The deputy of the Department of Displaced Persons in Marib, Khaled Al-Shajni, said that the state of preparedness and readiness to face the expected floods that will occur in the governorate during the rainy season is slow compared to the magnitude of the disaster expected to occur due to the expected floods, and that the response of the humanitarian action partners to the distress call launched by the Department of Displaced Persons is to work on steps to reduce the losses of the disaster before it occurs. He added many obstacles facing the process of evacuating the displaced from danger areas and torrential passages.
Al-Shujni indicated that the displaced persons unit is working to mobilize the efforts of partner humanitarian organizations to provide emergency stocks of shelter and food to meet the needs in a timely manner to face disasters due to the expected floods.
He explained that the local authority in Marib formed last month an emergency committee to assess the risks in various aspects that the displaced people in camps and homes may be exposed to due to floods, which determined the torrential passages and began evacuating the torrential passages from the displaced population to safer areas to reduce the risks that may result during the upcoming rainy season. and solutions in the long term.
evacuations of displaced persons
He pointed out that the process of evacuating families living near or in the flood corridors to safer areas began in the middle of last week and will continue until the evacuation of all those who were included in the evaluation of the Emergency Committee and decided to evacuate their areas to reduce material and human losses and issue warnings to families located in danger areas.
He stressed that the evacuation committee is facing difficulties, including the lack of alternative, safer places to evacuate the displaced from the danger areas due to the lack of private land in the state, but all the available lands are private property, and this constitutes a major obstacle to the work of evacuation and impedes the speed of work before the disaster occurs, as happened during the years In the past, many of the displaced in the flood corridors were subjected to erosion, death, material losses, and the loss of homes.
According to Al-Shajni, many families still live on the flood corridors and may be exposed to dangers. The families were notified of the need to vacate their places of residence, but the committee was unable to provide safe areas to transfer the displaced to until now.
He stated that the Department of Displaced Persons launched a distress call to all humanitarian partners in Marib to save the lives of the displaced families and transfer them to safe areas from the areas of danger threatening them due to the expected floods, according to the warnings and reports of the meteorological centers, as well as the Red Crescent and Red Cross Center in Yemen.
According to Al-Shajni, the response by the humanitarian partners is very weak until now, in a short time in which the management of the displaced seeks to work on the rule (prevention is better than cure) to address the problem before the disaster strikes and mitigate the damage, adding that the interventions by the partners are also very weak compared to the size of the demand and the wide need For the displaced in various needs of food, protection, shelter, and others, according to his description.
He added that the needs required by the displaced families in Marib are many, including the provision of safe and sustainable housing that is not directly affected by natural factors and is able to resist rain and sandy winds, especially since Marib has very hot and very cold desert rituals during its fluctuating rituals between summer and winter.
According to the Department of Displaced Persons, the number of families that need shelter is 47,862 displaced families, of which 288 displaced families live under trees and without housing or tents, while 13,000 families live in incomplete buildings owned by others, in addition to the presence of 178 camps for the displaced that are threatened with eviction from their sites for several reasons, including The dangers of floods threaten its residents, as well as the landowners’ claim of their need for the land on which the camp was established, in 13 Yemeni governorates hosting the displaced under the control of the internationally recognized government.
Rain damage
Yemen is witnessing a war that has entered its ninth year between the forces of the internationally recognized government and the Iranian-backed Houthi group, which has led to the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the world at a time when armed confrontations continue on various lines of fire in the country and without signs until today of actually establishing peace on the ground despite the wide initiatives calling for To a comprehensive and sustainable peace between the Yemeni parties, mediated by the United Nations and some countries.
The heavy rains since mid-March caused floods in many Yemeni governorates, affecting more than 13,000 families in the camps for the displaced, according to the Yemeni Red Crescent Society, including the governorates hosting the camps for the displaced in Marib, Al-Jawf, and Seiyun in Hadramout and Al-Mahra, leaving 14 dead, 30 injured, and extensive damage. in homes and camps
The displaced, who were forced by difficult circumstances to build their homes on the torrential paths, carry the worries of rain, as the displaced stay away from their homes throughout the rainy hours, in anticipation of the torrential rains that washed away their homes during the year 2021.
Displaced Abd al-Raqeeb al-Badani, who built a house for his family on the torrential corridor in the center of the city of Marib, says that the torrential rains of the year before last swept away his entire house and left no trace of it, and he was unable until today to completely rebuild his house. His house may be swept away.
