Ra'afat moves around from nine in the morning until eight in the evening, with his wheelbarrow, in the Tahrir neighborhood and its surrounding areas in central Sanaa, selling belts, youth hats, and some other goods. Ra'afat, 21 years old, has been working in this profession with meager returns for nearly two years. It wasn’t his choice but conflict circumstances forced him to leave school, just as successive wars forced many young people like him to get into the labor market to engage in multiple and secondary professions to combat poverty.
He was standing near the entrance of the Ministry of Culture in the famous downtown square, wiping off the remains of dust off his goods after escaping from municipal inspectors, who were forcing him and other street vendors to pay large fees, even though they were street vendors on carts and did not occupy a specific place under the municipal authority.
Ra'afat, who has been living in Sana'a for three years, complains about his situation, saying: “It is exhausting to remain on the move for hours in the streets, alleys, and backstreets, to only earn a little income, and yet we are not spared from the municipality’s endless maltreatment.”
He added that every morning the municipality chases us everywhere, then we move here where we feel a kind of safety, before we return in the evening to our shared residence consisting of only one room, where our exhausted bodies pile up after wandering around all day.
On the sidewalk next to the Ministry of Culture, Ra'afat was busy organizing his goods on the front of the moving cart, and near him were his street sellers' companions who come to the same place when municipal cars arrive on the main street under the pretext of organizing the streets and reducing crowding, he describes his diary as a "fight for life".
Some vendors have used the sidewalks of Ali Abd Al-Mughni Street, and the neighboring streets, as a place to display their goods to shoppers because of their proximity to the vibrant Tahrir Square, making it easier for them to move to nearby places in the event of the numerous municipality raids.
In fact, these street vendors struggle for their meager source of livelihood despite the violations they suffer the most under the pretext of maintaining order and cleanliness and ensuring that sidewalks are not used, in a scene that reflects the tragedy of thousands of street vendors, most of whom come from the central, southern and western governorates of the country.
A human rights activist told Khuyut: “The suffering of Yemeni youth is constantly increasing due to various reasons on top of which the lack of jobs as a result of the conflicts, and displacement, which sometimes amounts to forced displacement from areas that witnessed violent confrontations during the ongoing war, the chapters of which have not yet ended, despite the fragile truce.”!
He added - on the condition that his identity not be revealed - that "these conditions have contributed mainly to increasing the suffering of young people, most of whom have become responsible for many families who lost their breadwinners, and poor families have been forced to withdraw their children from the various stages of education, and push them to enter the labor market in order to support their members.
The stifling economic crisis caused high inflation rate which raised to about 40 percent, and the unemployment rate to rise to 35 percent from 14 percent before the war. Poverty also augmented to about 78 percent, causing young people, who constitute 70 percent of the total population of 32.6 million, to find themselves facing a dead end and a bleak future.
Since 2014, the poorest Arab country has been witnessing an armed conflict over power between Ansar Allah (Houthis), supported by Iran and control central, northern and western Yemen, including the capital, Sana’a in one hand, and the forces of the internationally recognized government supported by the Saudi-led coalition that control southern and eastern Yemen and some parts of the western coast and Taiz in the other hand.
Moreover, the war has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers, while the threat of famine threatens millions of residents, and thousands need urgent medical treatment - which is not available - in the country whose infrastructure has been destroyed.
The United Nations says that more than 21.7 million people (two-thirds of the population) need humanitarian assistance this year.
According to the United Nations, the overbearing economic crisis caused the inflation rate to rise to about 40 percent, and the unemployment rate to rise to 35 percent from 14 percent before the war. Poverty also increased to about 78 percent, leaving young people, who constitute 70 percent of the total population of 32.6 million, finding themselves facing a dead end and a bleak future.
Government employees in areas under Houthi control have been suffering from interruption of their salaries for more than six years.
A United Nations-brokered truce ended in early October 2022, without the parties to the conflict reaching an agreement to extend it after more than a year, but the situation remained relatively calm on the ground.
Some people place hopes on the truce agreement between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia in early April, which constituted the first part of a two-stage humanitarian operation to end the war that has been going on for many years, while others doubt it as it lacks details and timetables.
Meanwhile, the United Nations envoy to Yemen, Mr. Hans Grundberg, considered that the country mired in war had not witnessed such a “considerable opportunity” to achieve peace in eight years, stressing at the same time that there was still a lot of work to be done in this regard.
