For decades, many residents of mountainous regions and villages, in the districts of Al Mahweet Governorate (northwest of Sanaa), have dreamed of constructing a road for vehicles to travel to their villages. However, such dream has passed down from generation to generation, although they are aware of the extent of marginalization and neglect through which they are likely not to achieve that dream, now or in the future, as their predecessors couldn’t achieve throughout the past decades regardless of the regimes that have succeeded until today.
Many residents of the areas and villages of the districts of Al Mahweet governorate assert that their lives have become tough, due to the lack of roads to their areas. This compounded their suffering in light of their reliance on rugged walking roads that are unfit for movement and use, and their resort to walking for long distances that exceeding two hours. They resort to useless, difficult and arduous alternatives to transport their food and water needs, such as: using "ropes", or carrying objects and gallons of water on their shoulders and heads.
Al-Mahweet governorate did not receive much attention by several governments, and it has been almost always absent, compared to other governorates, at the level of development projects, except for a limited interest that was concentrated in some districts. In fact, development was limited to some cities and villages of flat geographical nature, leaving behind thousands of inhabitants of countless mountain villages, suffering the worst kinds of suffering, due to the lack of the most basic public services, such as the road network for a car to reach their areas.
Most of those mountainous villages, which are still begging for road service, are concentrated in the mountainous districts located to the west of the governorate; Bani Saad District, Hufash District, and Milhan District. These three districts also top the list of marginalized mountainous villages which are deprived of the most essential services, including the road, which is the lifeline. As a result, its residents are experiencing the worst consequences and disasters of neglect and social and political marginalization throughout Yemeni history.
Families in limbo
This suffering is not limited, regardless of its various aspects, even if the cause is the same; the need to build a road that serves some villages and a few populations. Rather, the tragedy goes beyond the borders of villages, sub districts and districts, to constitute a serious crisis and a social problem that troubles the lives of thousands of families throughout the governorate.
Citizens express their dissatisfaction about their miserable situation: “All our needs, of food, water, or other services, in light of the current situation, we have no choice but to transport them on shoulders or on women’s heads, for long and arduous distances.” In addition, there are villages in Bani Sa'ad, and in Malhan, which still use ropes to transport their needs.
"Khuyut", which surveyed the situation in the districts of Al-Mahweet Governorate, monitored the suffering of 25 areas and villages in just one district, "Malhan", due to the lack of any dirt or asphalt road to move around, while the number of families residing in these areas and villages is estimated at more than 1,100 families; This means that the members of those families, in that district, all suffer from the hardship and consequences of not having a road, as well as the overall suffering caused by all families across the governorate’s districts.
Moreover, there are also some remote and mountainous villages, in various districts in the governorate, that were not included in the administrative data of the Statistics and Information Center, issued in 2004, according to the latest population census.
Including, for instance, but not limited to, villages in the district of Bani Sa'ad, belonging to one sub district of Bani Saba, and these villages including the village of Jalha, the village of Al-Dahashish, and the village of Al-Sahla, and all these villages have been suffering by the lack of road until now. This confirms that there are many villages that are still marginalized and excluded from being including in any governmental population data, let alone to the provision of public road service.
Suffering beyond description
The residents of these villages dribble daily, the worst of life, to reach their villages due to the lack of a road through which they can transport their belongings and easily access basic services. Therefore, they are forced to carry and transport it, whatever its size and weight, regardless of the risks involved in transporting it by its carrier, due to the harsh nature and challenging mountainous terrain.
Ahmed Saleh (43 years old), feels very sad because there is no road to his village, which is located in the isolation of Al-Asous, Malhan District (west of the governorate). He told Khuyut that: "We face the greatest suffering in every detail of our lives, because there is no motorway to reach our village. I do not think that there is more suffering than what we suffer in this village, except for the residents of other villages that are still deprived of roads like us." He goes on to say that he and other residents of the village find it difficult to access all their services and transport their family needs, especially since their village is at a great distance from the nearest market where they go to buy their living needs which takes about two hours of walking to reach this market.
The severity of this suffering, due to the lack of a motorway to the mountain villages, was exacerbated during the war. Bashir Hassan (35 years old), an educational teacher, and a resident of Bani Sa'ad District, says that the lack of a car road to many villages in the district, currently constitutes one of the greatest types of misery that countless residents of these areas have been suffering on daily basis.
In his interview with Khuyut, Hassan explained that during the last years of the war in Yemen and its various repercussions, such as the scarcity and changing rainy seasons, climate change in general, resulted in the lack or scarcity of agricultural crops, and the shortage of drinking water. He revealed the extent of the suffering resulting from the lack of a vehicle road to the villages so that they can withstand these variations that the villagers have not witnessed in the past.
In addition, the residents of those areas and villages struggle to obtain their food and water needs from very remote areas and centers, and the problem of the lack of a road has exacerbated this suffering to its climax.
Finally, Hassan expresses his dissatisfaction with this situation, saying: "All our needs of food, water, and other needs or services, in light of the current situation, are transported on shoulders or on women's heads, over long and arduous distances," in addition to the fact that there are villages in Bani Sa'ad, and in Malhan, still use ropes to transport their needs.
Waiting for death
Residents of those villages, which are governed by a cycle of isolation with society, as a result of the lack of a road that facilitates their movement and transport their needs, witness the worst aspects of daily suffering that did not exclude anyone or any specific living circumstance, in all their life affairs, which means that it will be more tragic in emergency events such as sickness.
For decades, residents of Al Mahweet villages and districts have been demanding local authorities and the competent official entities to include them in development projects and to build roads in their areas and villages, but to no avail, and their demands are usually met with promises that quickly fade away.
Fawaz al-Qibla (34 years old), a resident of the village of Al-Qibla in Malhan district, says that “when there is a patient or when transporting critical sick cases, such as rescuing someone who has been poisoned, or rescuing a drowned person who needs emergency transportation to the nearest hospital or health center - They realize the scale of their suffering, and the real pain that everyone feels. It is really painful when they see a sick person that dies slowly before their eyes, or when you hear an agonizing scream of the severity of the pain, while resorting to transporting this body or the patient with a coffin on the shoulders is an attempt that consumes a great deal of time. Besides, the patient is exposed to many complications, which may cause him to die in the middle of the road before reaching the nearest medical center.
In those villages, the patient is often taken to the nearest corridor or car road, loaded with the coffin (a bed on which the dead are usually carried), according to what the people in Malhan told Khuyut. Despite the great risks that can happen to the patient and his carriers, especially since the mountainous road they take during transporting the patient on foot are narrow corridors punctuated by mountain ridges and slopes that are dangerous for everyone, not only the patient; This makes a large number of families neglect their patients or resort to using random drugs, without a medical prescription, brought from shops that sell drugs without a prescription, which may double - in most cases - the patient's worse condition.
In this context, Hajjah Zahra Hammoud, in her fifties, who belongs to the Hafash district, complains of neglect and marginalization from which their areas and villages suffer. A patient who is no longer able to carry himself and walk to the nearest hospital or clinic remains in bed. Also, the remote area in which she lives, according to her assertion, has become empty of young men and women, who, years ago, would take the initiative to carry any patient on the coffin to the hospital or the road to vehicles, and who were forced by the difficult living conditions to migrate to the cities.
Fruitless Requests
Mohammad Ahmed (60 years old), from the Al-Sahla area in Bani Saba, which is affiliated with the Bani Sa'ad district, said in an interview with "Khuyut", that for decades, residents of Al-Mahweet districts and villages have been requesting the local authorities and the competent authorities for development projects, building roads to their areas, but it is of no use. Their demands are often met with promises that quickly fade away.
For his part, Mansour Al-Habaka, a resident of Al-Rawdha in Malhan, says that there was hope of addressing this concern in the eighties of the last century, when the cooperatives, which were the result of large community financial contributions implemented by the government, built roads to many villages in Malhan and elsewhere. However, unfortunately, these villages have not enjoy such service a result of a dispute between the implementing agencies, and we are still suffering of the consequences of this dispute up to day.
There are also some areas of the province that have adopted self-initiatives to construct motorway roads, with community initiatives. However, these roads have been destroyed and rendered unfit for movement, as a result of the torrential rains. Also, most of the local population in these remote areas remains unable to undertake any self-initiatives in this aspect as a result of the deteriorating living condition they are experiencing, in addition to the difficult mountainous nature that requires great resources and equipment to construct such roads.
