Eight full years have passed since the Yemenis woke up after midnight on March 26, 2015, to the sounds of bombing and explosions as a result of heavy raids by what was called at the time the Arab Coalition led by Saudi Arabia to restore legitimacy and end the Houthi insurgency in the north of the country through a military operation known as the "Decisive Storm".

These airstrikes came shortly after President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi left the city of Aden and Yemen by road, when his residence was bombed by warplanes, and the forces of Saleh and his ally Al-Houthi took over the city, in a clear and explicit manifestation of the emergence of an internal war alliance against the Yemenis.

Before that, President Hadi had left Sana’a a month after he submitted a reasoned resignation, after the Houthis and Saleh pushed him into the deadly slot, following their rebellion against the outcomes of the National Dialogue Conference, and four months after the Houthi group invaded the capital, Sana’a, and seized state institutions and resources with the involvement of everyone.

Following the March 26, the country ignited from bottom to the top, with a blind war that dismantled the fragile state, destroyed weak infrastructure, and produced a state of displacement that Yemen had never witnessed likewise before. As a result, the live has become more problematic in a fragmented country run by militias produced by the state of war and its sponsors; each of whom has his own militia entity, security arms, resources and prisons.

Thus, instead of ending the coup and restoring the state, the Decisive Storm generated more than one rebellion in the country, and instead of ending the suffering of the Yemenis, it made it even worse. In fact, Yemen as a whole has been hijacked with its sovereign resources and vital geography, and the suffering of its people has become part of a complicated regional settlement file between two bitter rivals; (Saudi Arabia and Iran), who found in the impoverished country a battlefield to fight by employing the bloods of its people.

Instead of reaching the capital of the unified state, which was at a few kilometers distance, the Yemenis had three capitals now, two divided banks, two governments, two parliaments, and two currencies (with exchange differences), which increased starvation and impoverishment of the people.

They destroyed education and civil structure on its precarious ground, turned children into fighters, and mastered mobilization under devious slogans pleading with patriotism, religion, and independence in order to implement dismantling projects. 

Some cities are still besieged, such as (Taiz), and their residential neighborhoods are being frequently bombed, and the mines planted are still like poisonous mushrooms, killing civilians everywhere especially in the areas of conflict. Additionally, secret and illegal detention centers are overcrowded with victims of imprisonment and forced disappearance.

The corruption which was controlled or coexistent with, has become like a rampant pandemic, affecting everything, including the corruption of those involved in relief and humanitarian response. 

Moreover, Tax collection has become a prominent title for the impoverishment and starvation of Yemenis, and instead of directing such huge funds to serve the people, it is being used for the benefit of the closed structures of the militias and the de facto authorities.

Further, the conflict resulted in the creation of a parallel economy, the mainstay of which was looted money, trading in currency, relief materials, fake lists of soldiers, trafficking in contraband and weapons, and the outputs of this economy are used to fuel and sustain the war which has become the mine of the fantasy gains for the warlords.

After eight years of hell

The dream of peace is still beyond the reach of the Yemenis, and the side consultations and secret agreements between the two regional sponsors (Saudi Arabia and Iran) are an attempt to impose new rules of engagement based on quotas and power-sharing, after the country's elites have turned into merely followers who cannot impose a new formula for an independent Yemeni national project, nor are they able to enforce the principle of accountability against the parties that caused this great devastation.