The parties to the conflict imposed a complete siege on the Yemeni people that they did not leave any outlet for them to live. However, those who are forced to leave the country encounter a lot of hardships, and long detours, with different rare means of travel. The country is besieged both internally and externally. The roads are cut off, the country airports are closed except the airport of Aden which was left, and the seas are prohibited for its people. Moreover, the health conditions and the epidemics spreading in the world have exacerbated the crisis, and added to the existing restrictions.

Many people especially very sick or injured citizens, seek to travel outside the for health reasons and searching for medical treatment. As soon as the patient’s family gathers the money needed to treat her patient, the journey to obtain the passport emerges to them, which is no longer available except in some cities under the control of the internationally recognized government such as Aden and Taiz and Marib, and perhaps one or two other cities. Moreover, obtaining a passport is not an easy matter; First, the traveler needs to pay lot of money to get it, and I have heard people talking that they paid 100,000 riyals, while some others paid 200,000 riyals, others less or more, and that the issuance of the passport may also reach to weeks of procedures or perhaps months at times.

As soon as the passport is issued, other problems arise; Including official travel transactions and the bribes associated with it, waiting for flight dates - which have become very few - and then strenuous travel within the country, which is a long way travel before leaving the country.

After all this - if the patient endures until the completion of the travel requirements and leaves for his destination, and reaches his doctor - the concerns and difficulties of returning home such as finding a flight within the few rare trips, and we hear from time to time about Yemenis stuck in India, Jordan, Egypt, or other destinations when they travel for medical treatment.

Then, if you turn to the other side of the departures, you will see hundreds of job seekers expatriates who are traveling to look for a work and living income; They are the travelers who are the farthest destination, and who face the most severe obstacles, and the most prominent problems, and I am not in a position to talk about it in this article as they are too many to be listed for a hasty reader.

Expatriates have been in phone contact with their families for years, longing for their families and children until they chart the date of return. Then, they are faced with a series of worries and complicated travel procedures, most of which are solved by paying bribes.

The expatriate spends his sudden vacation after years of work outside the country, while he is very concerned about the travel arrangement for the way back to his work.

They were four relatives, my aunt, her daughter, and another child who is the son of her cousin (residing in Djibouti), and we told him about those who mediated for them to able to travel in return for the boat fare, as travel from there is not official, and is more like smuggling. He replied to us: Travel with me, or else not!"

The expatriates no longer care about the length of the road and its hardship, and they have become accustomed to it, as much as the concerns of the border crossings and their severe suffering, especially through the land and sea ones, in which we all know how Yemenis are treated for days under hot sun, wind and cold without the slightest humanity or dignity preserved.

Closed ports

This recurring problem on a daily basis did not find any solutions or attention by the internationally recognized government, or the neighboring countries responsible for these measures, especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, given that the Al-Wadi’a land port is the most prominent and famous in violating Yemeni human rights.

As for the sea ports, they are more complex and more dangerous, in light of the full military control of the Arab coalition state led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the sea gate, under the pretext of the war against the Houthis.

One of my relatives was an expatriate in Djibouti nearly six years ago, and as soon as he became nostalgic for his parents and brothers and returned to them for a quick visit, he started planning a trip to return, a trip that required him to do a lot of communication and use relations with Yemeni and Djiboutian friends and facilitators, to draw up a travel plan for him through twisting and dangerous roads.

He contacted one of his family relatives that had settled in Djibouti for many decades, and he, in turn, activated his relations with those with whom he had relations with the owners of the “Sanabiq” (large boats) that transported some goods and items between Yemen on one side and Djibouti and Somalia on the other, and he set the date of his travel. When it was time for him to leave, I decided to accompany him to the coast of departure and bid him farewell.

The travel date was decided on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 26, 2021, and we had to travel more than 100 kilometers from the city of Mocha to the Suwayda region, the far southeast of Dhu Bab district, through a road full of sharp and deep potholes, so that drivers preferred to get off and walk on a branch line. Next to it, they must follow it, and the travel scenes are not without seeing frequent cars and trucks traffic accidents along the length of the road.

We arrived at As-Suwayda, which is an alternative landing area for the Mocha port, which has been closed since the end of 2016 and until today, and there I found a beautiful coastline, clean and untouched by human hands, decorated with small, smooth, soft red pebbles.

There I also saw many heaps of onions, and animal fodder (ajour) being carried by small boats (fibras) to large boats (sanabek) which were moored away from the coast at an estimated distance of 300 meters to the depth, since the place was not ready for mooring to set off towards Djibouti and Somalia, and I saw three medium cargo ships at least one kilometer from the coast. The people there told me that it belonged to famous merchants in Mocha.

As soon as we arrived, we asked about the owner of (Al-Sanbeq), whose name had been predetermined for us. The owner of a small boat (Weber) pointed to him, then we boarded his small boat and met him to tell him about the intention of my relative and those with him to travel, in his boat.

Traveling is like smuggling

they were four; My relative, his aunt, her daughter, and another child who is the son of her cousin (residing in Djibouti), and we told him about those who intercede with him for them to travel in return for the boat fare, as travel from there is not official, and is more like smuggling. He replied: Travel with me, or else not!"

Fortunately, the travelers (my relative and those with him) hold the Djiboutian nationality, and therefore the Djiboutian passport. As for the Yemeni passport, which is the most expensive and the most difficult to issue, its holder has no right to travel.

We waited until the workers finished loading the livestock fodder on the (Sanbouq) and then the diesel came to be supplied, then the passengers boarded the small boat (Viber), which in turn plunged them to the depth where the (Sanbouq) lay, and their journey began at the sunset.

In the past, the port of Mocha was the port for travelers (to and fro) between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, despite what it was suffering from of marginalization and neglect. Then hand it over to Tariq Saleh's forces less than a year ago.

On July 29, 2021, the media of Tariq Saleh announced that the port would be opened to receive goods, and it later became clear that the decision was not intended more than media consumption, which is intended to silence people from the murmuring around the port, and to demand that it return to work as it was before. Since that day, only two small ships were received, whose nobody knows for sure about their contents, then the port returned to what it was before; closed and used for military purposes so that the sea outlet become the strictest closure in the face of the Yemeni citizen travel.

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