Ahmed Ali could hardly swallow his saliva after his son Khaled decided to travel outside of the country. The boy, who is considered the only one in the family, decided to travel due to the difficult living situation in Yemen.
Ahmed told "Khuyut": "My son used to work in a pharmaceutical company, and his situation was better, but what the country is going through at present no longer allows him to plan his future at all. Bedsides, his salary hardly provides for the family's expenses let alone if he wants to build a house of his own, I feel the pain of parting, but there is no trick in the hand.”
After stopping for days at the Belarus border, Khaled and his colleague were able to enter Germany, and the family's dream of working in Europe was about to come true. Ahmed Ali's family is not the only one who was forced to make this choice, as most Yemeni families can no longer afford the difficult living conditions, which makes them think about displacing their children, whatever was the destination.
Overwhelming Distress
Yemen is not an attractive country to stay in, but today it seems repulsive to its children. Abdullah Ali, has graduated from the Department of Journalism at Sana’a University, and he dreamed of working in international newspapers, but he was surprised by the division of the country into cantons for specific groups, each group owning its own media outlets. Since Abdullah does not belong to any of these parties in the arena, which made him stop, he gave up working as a journalist and turned into a different business to support his family.
Abdullah told "Khuyut": "I expected the war to end within a year or two, but today we are in the seventh year. I work in a field other than my field of specialization, waiting for the crisis to end, but there are no signs of hope."
Mukhtar Abdel Moez, an activist specializing in digital security and dealing with the issues of stranded immigrant youth, is surprised by the amount of messages he receives requesting to travel, as he has managed to register more than 1,600 people, and help more than 300 stranded at the borders.
He adds that business has declined with the fluctuation of exchange rates and the rise in food prices, He continued: "This war ate more hair from my head than the shells ate on the ground. I am thinking of emigrating to complete my studies or to work in any other country to bypass this hell. The homeland has become a big prison that everyone wants to get out of it."
Further, Abdullah said, "Who can compensate me for all these years that I spent escaping from politics and staying away from the warrying parties in order to protect my profession?! Who pays compensation to me and my young colleagues for wasting all these years, since most of us live in unemployment because of the war."
Long years of conflict
Mohammad Ali is considering traveling to Amman-Jordan to prepare for his master’s thesis, but the war conditions prevented him from traveling, and so far he is still entering social media in search of any opportunity to travel, as his friend Najm did when he met a girl through Facebook through which he was able to obtaining an entry visa by which he was able to complete his studies, many attempts failed.
Hamdi Al-Khatib, an English language graduate, is looking for a way to reach Canada. He even had to change his profile picture on Facebook with the Canadian flag. Hamdi told "Khuyut": "I gave up looking for an outlet because the embassies closed their doors because of the war, but I'm trying to save some money to go to Saudi Arabia to apply to the Canadian embassy, a dream of unknown results, and I don’t know how to get there.”
Mahmoud Al-Hajj, a graduate of the laboratories, came to the point of thinking of registering as a refugee after a trip he would start from Djibouti and then to Canada. Al-Hajj told “Khuyut”: “Two weeks ago, I prepared my passport and went to a Yemeni merchant working in Djibouti, in search of a job there, to take care of the exit to Djibouti at his own expense, and then things will be easier there."
Mass departure
Mukhtar Abdel Moez, an activist specializing in digital security and dealing with the issues of stranded young immigrants, is surprised by the amount of messages he receives from travel requesters and requests for registration on some travel programs to some countries, such as America. He was able - according to him - to register more than 1,600 people, in addition to helping more than 300 stranded at the borders for free, while the government left them to the unknown destiny. Abdel Moez asserts that the future of Yemeni immigrant youth is at stake, as they are being bulldozed and their dignity undermined in an unimaginable way.
He adds to "Khuyut", that Yemenis are looking for security and tranquility, protecting their families, and building their lives away from this miserable reality, especially given job opportunities have become available through the Internet, as positive interaction with these opportunities enables them to get jobs that they receive from between 300-500 dollars via the Internet, the most important thing in this aspect is to acquire the skills of using social media in a positive way.
For his part, journalist Saddam al-Kamali, in an interview with "Khuyut", said that the war in Yemen is the main reason for the migration of young people for the sake of better life and working opportunities abroad, in addition to the deteriorating economic situation and the alienating environment that was formed due to the practices of the ruling regime during the past decades. But he believes that this migration is beneficial for the future of the country as there will be a qualified young generation, if this generation returns after the end of the war to Yemen.
Death journey
On his way to exile, Mustafa Al-Rimi lost his life in Poland. His dream was to go to improve his living conditions in Europe and take his family with him after years, but he lost his life there, while the consulate came to bury him and bury all his dreams and those of his family with him.
There are many forms of suffering that the immigrant faces. For example, soldiers at the borders of Poland drown the migrants in the river below zero temperature, and then they are returned to the Belarus borders to freeze in the open, and sometimes they are collected and detained in a specific place, surrounded and prevented from moving after their money and phones are taken.
A source specializing in refugee issues, who preferred not to be named, confirms that there are risks to traveling through Russia to Belarus, where “those caught are imprisoned for a year, or they are hidden, and some may even have their legs broken during the investigation. There are painful and violent scenes practiced against them that may even prevent the elderly from food, and give only a little to the children, equivalent to one loaf, and the elderly may be given some water, so we never advise crossing the border from Russia.
He explained in an interview with "Khuyut", that the suffering multiplies after entering Belarus due to the difficulty of language, and that the offices there defraud the immigrants by booking a hotel for only four days, and they cannot extend the hotel because the hotel is booked in advance.
The migrants are forced to go out to the street and sleep there for days, while their group arranges for their travel, after which they start dealing with human traffickers, where coordination is made with a taxi to take them to the borders, and sometimes unreliable people are dealt with, unfortunately among them are Yemenis.
The taxi driver, in turn, deals with soldiers or gangs wearing police uniforms that rob the migrants when they reach the border, and return them via the same taxi to Belarus, and then the looters share the stolen money and phones between them. However, if the immigrant succeeds and enters the border to Poland, his problems will begin with the Poles; immigrants are subjected to violent beatings by Polish soldiers, and soldiers may use weapons to force immigrants to turn on their phones, and those who refuse are shot carelessly.
Professor of Sociology, Dr. Yasser Al-Silwi, told "Khuyut" that since 2011 the country has witnessed unstable economic conditions, the severity of which has increased since 2014, after the Ansar Allah group (Houthis) took control of Sanaa, and the country entered a dark tunnel.
He adds that Yemen is experiencing very difficult years and extensive economic and political crises due to the war in the country since 2015, which has provoked the idea of immigration dominating the minds of many Yemeni youth including those qualified and have the competencies and skills and even ordinary unskillful citizens.
Experts and observers believe that those who emigrate are the best people of Yemen, the minds of this country and the human wealth that the state has spent millions of dollars for their education, rehabilitation and skills.
Al-Silwi points out that the destruction and economic damage caused by the war can be compensated, but this continuous bleeding of Yemeni minds that emigrate, on which the development process in the country was supposed to be based, cannot be compensated.
It is worth noting that the destinations of Yemeni immigration varied between Europe, East Asian countries, America and the Gulf, but the pain of the homeland and their nostalgia for their families and beloved is the common factor, and it is an open wound that the war has exacerbated for an unknown period.
