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| Arabia |
| Displaced families face new exodus as Yemen fighting shifts again |
| 2021-02-25 |
| [Yemend] As the sound of gunfire grew closer, Mahfouz Ahmed knew to scoop up his children and run, before getting caught in the line of fire between Yemen's warring sides. The Al-Zor camp where they had been living for four years was no longer safe, as the Iran-backed Huthi rebels drew near in a major offensive against the northern city of Marib and its nearby oil fields. The family collected what few possessions they had, including a small television, a cooking burner and a few pots and pans, and headed to Jaw al-Naseem, another camp closer to Marib, which is the Saudi-backed government's last northern bastion. "We were about 600 families living in Al-Zor camp, and now they have dispersed," Ahmed told AFP, as he sat on the floor of a green tent in Jaw al-Naseem, just three kilometres (less than two miles) from the city. "Some are living with relatives and others -- three or four families, sometimes even seven -- are living in one tent. Only God knows what kind of situation this is." Ahmed and his family first fled their home in the battleground city of Taez in 2016, part of a huge exodus of Yemenis for whom Marib province became a sanctuary of sorts in a country ravaged by years of war. Around 140 sites have sprung up in the region to provide basic shelter for the displaced, who number up to one million according to some estimates. More at the link |
| Posted by:badanov |