When food is used as a weapon In Yemen

When food is used as a weapon IN Yemen.

WHAT HAPPEN IN YEMEN WILL NOT STAY IN YEMEN  

FOR EVER

 

  
This month Saudi Arabia tightened a stranglehold on the neighboring country of Yemen and 7 million people face starvation. The Saudi blockade is an escalation in Yemen's civil war. The United Nations says the war has now become a "man-made catastrophe." You've seen very little of this because the Saudis prevent reporters from reaching the war zone. Recently, we were ordered off a ship headed to Yemen. Days later the Saudis gave us permission to fly there but, after our equipment was loaded and our boarding passes issued, the Saudis closed the airspace so the plane couldn't take off. Even so, we have managed to get pictures out of Yemen to show you what the Saudi government does not want you to see. This will be hard to watch, but 27 million people in Yemen pray you will not turn away.

A child in Yemen

Hungry children cry. But there are no tears at the limits of starvation. Wasting bodies cannot afford them. This is the Al Sabeen Hospital in the Yemeni city of Sana'a. Ibtisam is two and a half. She weighs 15 pounds. Haifa is seven. She weighs 11 pounds. The images, and stories from the hospital, were sent to us by people that we hired inside Yemen. One child dies every ten minutes in the country according to the U.N..
David Beasley runs the World Food Programme, the U.N.'s emergency first responder to prevent famine.
David Beasley: It's just desperation and death. It is as bad as it gets. I don't know if I've ever seen a movie this bad.
Scott Pelley: We were headed into Yemen with the World Food Programme, the Saudis gave us permission to come, and then when we arrived they wouldn't let us into the country. What do you think they didn't want us to see?
David Beasley: I don't understand why they won't allow the world to see what's taking place. Because I think if the world sees the tragedy of this human sufferin', number one, the world will step up and provide the support financially for innocent children to eat. But when you get on the ground and see what I see, you see is chaos, is starvation, is hunger, and it's unnecessary conflict strictly man-made. All parties involved in this conflict have their hands guilty, the hands are dirty. All parties.

"We're on the brink of famine. If we don't receive the monies that we need in the next few months, I would say 125,000 little girls and boys will die."

In essence, the fight is between the two main branches of Islam. The Shia branch occupies much of the West, the Sunnis most of the South and East. Saudi Arabia, leader of the Sunni world, began airstrikes against Shia rebels, more than two years ago. The rebels, who are known as Houthis, are supported by Saudi Arabia's arch enemy, Iran, the leader of the Shia world.
Houthi rebels have plenty of blood on their hands, including the deaths of 1,000 civilians. But the U.N. says the Saudi coalition has killed more than 3,000 civilians; bombing schools, hospitals and Al Kubra hall, scene of a funeral last year. 132 Civilians were killed, nearly 700 wounded. Still, the deadliest weapon in Yemen is a blockade holding up food, fuel and medical aid.
David Beasley: We can't get our ships in. They get blocked
Scott Pelley: Who blocks the ports?
David Beasley: The Saudi coalition.
David Beasley told us the Saudis bombed the cranes that unload ships. The U.S. sent replacement cranes. But the Saudis won't let them in.
David Beasley: We ask any, any parties engaged in this conflict to respect humanitarian law, respect the rights of innocent people and give us the access that we need to provide the help that's needed.
Scott Pelley: It sounds like the Saudis are using starvation as a weapon.
David Beasley: I don't think there's any question the Saudi-led coalition, along with the Houthis and all of those involved, are using food as a weapon of war. And it's disgraceful.

A child in Yemen

The U.N. World Food Programmer is the largest humanitarian aid agency. The U.S. is its biggest donor, so the director is most often an American. Beasley was once governor of South Carolina.
David Beasley: We're on the brink of famine. If we don't receive the monies that we need in the next few months, I would say 125,000 little girls and boys will die. We've been able to avert famine, but we know three things that are happenin'. We know that people are dying. We know that people are wasting. And we know that children are stunting. We have a stunting rate in Yemen now at almost 50 percent. That means they're smaller, the brains are smaller, the body's smaller because they're not getting the food or the nutrition they need.
The World Food Programme's Stephen Anderson is trying to move millions of pounds of food to Yemen from an African port in Djibouti.
Stephen Anderson: The World Food Programme is mobilizing food for seven million people. Now what that looks like is a 110-pound bag of wheat flour. We're aiming to provide two million of those every month to the people of Yemen.
Scott Pelley: How long can you keep that up?
Stephen Anderson: Well, we're desperately praying for peace. Because that's the only sustainable way of really rebuilding the situation our stated objective is to try to prevent a famine from occurring.

Stephen Anderson distributes food

CBS News

While facing imminent famine, the people of Yemen are also suffering one of the biggest cholera epidemics in history. Nearly a million have been infected with the bacteria which inflicts diarrhea, dehydration and sometimes death. The disease thrives in dirty water. And water treatment and sanitation have collapsed in Yemen's cities.
Nevio Zagaria heads the World Health Organization's emergency response.
Scott Pelley: What do you have to have to stop the epidemic?
Nevio Zagaria: We should have peace. This is what we need to stop this epidemic. So we cannot solve the problem of cholera if we do not have a proper safe water supply, if we do not have proper sanitation. If we do not have the sewage treatment plant in the main town functioning and stop because it runs out of fuel as it happened at the beginning of this epidemic in the north of Sana'a for three or four months.
Scott Pelley: The main sewage plant in Sana'a ran out of fuel and didn't run for three or four months?
Nevio Zagaria: Yes. So 3 million people, huh?
About two million Yemenis have been forced from their homes by the war and there's been a big exodus of refugees that the world doesn't know very much about. Many of them have come 25 miles across the Red Sea to a refugee camp in the African nation of Djibouti. It is a testament to how bad things are in Yemen that the refugees believe that this place is so much better.
We've seen a few refugee camps in our time but this may be the most desolate with a drought of life and flood of sun. One worker told us we were smart to come in fall when it cooled off to 110.

Scott Pelley: How long have you been here?
Ali Shafick: Unfortunately 28 months.
Ali Shafick was once an architect in the Yemeni capital. His home was destroyed. He's alone here. And his despair was almost like madness.
Ali Shafick: To be jobless in this camp is very sad. The time is going slowly, very slowly.
Scott Pelley: The heat must be unbearable.
Ali Shafick: Heat? Yes, boiling. Starting from June, July and August. Three months. You cannot live, you cannot live here, three months. It's impossible to live.
Scott Pelley: And yet you do.
Ali Shafick: I have to be patient. I have to be patient.

Djibouti refugee camp

CBS News

This mother, Ameena Saleh, told us her family left after Saudi led airstrikes killed more than 70 people in her town.
The planes would fly above us and fire rockets and missiles she told us. At night there was no sleep, they were holding the young ones. She said that her older son was saying 'we are going to die.' She told us we saw people die right in front of us.
Scott Pelley: A little while ago we heard a rumble from the direction of Yemen. That's the bombing, isn't it?
Yes, her husband said, it's near.
Scott Pelley: What do you think when you hear that?
Strong fear, she said. She said the terror is still inside us from the rockets, missiles and planes.
Ayman Gharaibeh runs Yemeni refugee relief for the U.N..
Scott Pelley: What lies ahead for these people, given where we are today?
Ayman Gharaibeh: Remember, the conflict is going into a third year, some people has been displaced for literally three years or going into their third year.  I honestly do not see any silver lining anywhere on the horizon that this is gonna end soon. And I'm afraid the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate. And we would go from a displacement to a famine, as happened, to cholera, and God knows what's next.

"All the children are gonna be dead. It's terrible."

The Saudi intervention in Yemen began with the rise of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he's the son of the king and he's the defense minister. Salman is quickly reforming the kingdom's fundamentalist society. Recently, he lifted the ban on women drivers. This month, he arrested 200 Saudis including princes and media owners. He says it's a crackdown on corruption. His critics believe he's silencing his rivals. Salman's campaign in Yemen has now landed Saudi Arabia, for the first time, on the U.N.'s blacklist of nations that disregard the safety of children in war.
The Saudis have pledged $8 billion in humanitarian aid for Yemen, but they've delivered very little of that. The head of the Saudi humanitarian agency says that its aid to Yemen is, quote, "way beyond any damage caused by any attacks."

Scott Pelley: You met with some government officials involved in all of this, what kind of dialogue did you have with them?
David Beasley: Well we met with officials on all sides. They said all the right things. And we come back, everything that they agreed to on visas and access, so that we can get the equipment we need in, so we can deliver the food where we need to deliver it, and the technology and the health product -- you know -- terrible. The conditions are deteriorating in an unprecedented way and none of the commitments that were made, by any and all sides, have been fulfilled.
Scott Pelley: What future do you see for Yemen?
David Beasley: I don't see a light at the end of this tunnel. There's gotta be a big change. As the World Food Program, I've got my mandate to feed people. But also as a U.N. leader, I call upon the leaders of the world to bring the pressure to bear whatever's necessary to get the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis and all involved to the table and end this thing. You keep goin' like you're goin', there's not gonna be anybody left. All the children are gonna be dead. It's terrible.
Produced by Nicole Young and Katie Kerbstat

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

60 Minutes, barred from Yemen,still got the footage

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-barred-from-yemen-still-got-the-footage/ 

UNICEF warns that Yemen’s children are paying the heaviest price for living life in a war zone

UNICEF warns that Yemen’s children are paying the heaviest price for living life in a war zone

A child in Yemen dies every 10 minutes as

 humanitarian aid funding falls short, U.N. says

AND NO ONE CARE ABOUT YEMEN 

--------------

The future has never been so bleak for the children of Yemen. Images from the past few months show a country teetering on the brink of famine. 

As the conflict enters its third year this week, the UN children’s agency says the youngest and most vulnerable are paying the heaviest price.

According to UNICEF’s latest estimates one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes like malnutrition, diarrhoea and respiratory tract infections.

Attacks on hospitals and clinics have risen by a third, leaving the health system on the verge of collapse. 

While attacks on schools have more than quadrupled in the last year, forcing thousands to stay away from the classroom.

Future generations caught up in the fighting between Iranian-backed rebels and the Saudi-led coalition are at great risk, if no solution is found to the conflict

أوقفواالعدوان على #اليمن وارفعوا الحصارفورااذاكنتم تملكون ذرةمن الإنسانيةاما فتات تبرعاتكم هذه فانهاتظهرانكم عكس ذلك https://t.co/6tEQGYsbfL pic.twitter.com/CNTorgn2Kw

— Princess Of Yemen🇾🇪 (@PrincessOfYmn) April 25, 2017

19 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance across #Yemen.
We must act now. https://t.co/gonD0FdNym #Aid4Yemen pic.twitter.com/CzkzClXhho

— UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) April 26, 2017

#اليمن.. أكبر أزمة إنسانية في العالم الآن
الحوار كاملا: https://t.co/a4yNW3O7ec pic.twitter.com/LAHndCsXxg

— أخبار الأمم المتحدة (@UNNewsArabic) April 24, 2017

"The international community has the power and the means to end the conflict in #Yemen" - @antonioguterres #Aid4Yemen pic.twitter.com/h4SVBnq0m1

— UN Geneva (@UNGeneva) April 25, 2017

Yemeni snipe multiple Saudi troops

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Dar al-Hajar ِAnd Jambiya In Yemen

Sana'a, Yemen

Buying a SIM card for your phone in Yemen entails giving a copy of the picture page and visa stamp of your passport to the store-owner which he presumably passes along to the appropriate authorities, and filling out an application form which must be stamped with your left thumbprint.  A phone call is then made to some mysterious entity and only then do you get your cellphone number. One assumes in these disturbing times, that the Yemeni government wants to keep tabs on who’s who. (It is interesting to note which countries keep close tabs on such things. In Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria you pay cash and trundle off with the new SIM and phone number, nary a piece of paperwork in sight. In Tunisia, Libya and Yemen your passport is required and recorded. I cannot quite find the common thread there.....)  The good news is that the SIM card and a charge card costs the grand total of $12.  Email is also very cheap here at 50 cents an hour (100 Yemeni Riyals) for relatively fast connection, with internet cafes everywhere in the major cities.

A view of Old Sana'a from the rooftop of one of the city's many samsarahs.

Sana’a has a long history. It is said to have been founded by Shem, son of Noah. Arabs are descended from Shem, hence the term Semitic......Arabs, like their Jewish brethren, are a Semitic people - a little known fact, especially in the US where the term ‘Semitic’  has come to be associated exclusively with Jews  - an absurd, but by now well-established, nonsense.

Yemenis or South Arabians, are often considered to be ‘pure’ Arabs, being descended from Qahtan, (associated with Joktan a descendant of Shem, in the book of Genesis), while ‘northern Arabians’ are descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar. (Adnan, who was mentioned in an earlier post as father of north Arabians, is a descendant of Ishmael.) The term ‘Arab’ seems to have been recorded in written records for the first time in Assyrian texts dating back to 853BC. There may be frequent reference to lineage in the coming posts and this is because it is extremely important in Bedouin or 'pure' Arab culture. But as Ibn Battuta would say, "but we will talk of this later."

Like other areas of the Arabian peninsula, Christianity was well established in Yemen by the mid-4th century but the last Himyarite King, Dhu Nuwas, who ruled from 495-525AD converted to Judaism and began to persecute Christians, culminating in the massacre of the entire Christian population of Najran, now in SW Saudi Arabia. The Byzantines, both affronted and powerless, asked their fellow Christian Ethiopians to attack Yemen to protect the remnants of the Christians, which they did under the Axumite General, Abraha.  He destroyed the Himyarite regime and installed himself as ruler, but the Yemenis asked the Persians for help in ousting the Ethiopians, and by 575AD they were installed as governors.

Another view of the unique and magnificent architecture of the old City of Sana'a

Judaism has lengthy roots in Yemen and although it is not known exactly when it was established, it is assumed that after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, some Jews made their way south to Yemen. Until 1948, there was a strong Jewish community but today the numbers are reduced to only a few hundred, mainly in the north in Sa’ada. Christianity did not fare so well - one of the reasons it did not take root long enough to survive in depth the coming of Islam, was the Byzantine Church’s heavy handedness in dealing with what it considered its heretical elements, i.e. the monotheistic creed that was embraced by many of the Eastern churches.  When the Muslims marched out of Arabia into neighboring lands not requiring - indeed initially not even wanting - their subjects to convert, paradoxically many elected not only to live under Muslim rule which was more benign than that of Constantinople, but to convert. (The benefit of conversion was exemption from the tax that all non-Muslims paid.)

But back to present-day Sana’a. The open-air medieval souk is the heart of old Sana’a. Now called Souk al-Milh, or Salt Souk, this name used to refer only to the segment of the souk designated for that trade - in years gone by 40 trades were conducted in the souk.

Creating some small metal part the old-fashioned way - no protective clothing in sight...

Nowadays you can still find metalworkers, jambiya makers, carpenters and potters at work in their tiny shops while in the retail section of the souk are spices, dates, tobacco, coffee, tea, perfumes, incense, silver, jambiyyas and embroidered belts, basketry, jewelry, textiles, and household items. In former times goods arrived on camelback to a samsarah or khan where they were bought from local merchants - some of those samsarahs have been converted into art galleries although a few are still used for storage. 

Jambiya - the curved dagger no self-respecting Yemeni would step outside his home without.

As for the tower houses of old Sana’a, the most iconic in the country is in Wadi Dahr, Beit al-Hajjar. Located on a limestone outcrop north of the capital it was originally built in the 18th century but was renovated in the 1930s as a summer residence for Imam Yahya. It is still used by the government for official functions. 

It has all the components of a traditional tower house; several storeys of gypsum-traced windows, extravagant colored glass qamariyya windows, and shubaq, the protruding encased window ledge used for keeping meat and dairy products cool in the days before refrigeration. 

The most famous house in Yemen - Beit al-Hajjar in Wadi Dahr, near the capital.

I had been hospitably entertained in a tower house in the old City currently being rented by a friend - all five storeys of it.  Now I was about to go off into the wilds of Yemen with Abdullah Khawlani, driver and trusted friend. It promised to be memorable... Abdullah does not speak much English, although he understands far more than he lets on,  and my Arabic is execrable especially when I have to translate pages of text relating to the 14th century, text that dwells on matters most sensible people have long ago left off thinking about. Back on the trail of Ibn Battuta who landed in northern Yemen by boat, I am doing no such thing -  I am traveling in a Land Cruiser from Sana’a. But first I had to visit the pharmacy - it is the rainy season, albeit the short one, and as I am going to be spending some time on the coast where the climate is noxious at the best of times and mosquitoes abound, a dose of malaria would be tiresome even if Sana’a does have some perfectly good hospitals now. In Yemen as in many Middle Eastern countries, you can buy most drugs over the counter for a fraction of the cost you pay at home, so here's to $2 Larium and hypnotic dreams......

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh looks down protectively over his flock at Bab Yemen, principal gate of the Old City.

STATE OF WAR IN #YEMEN #UPDATE

حرب اليمن

STATE OF WAR IN #YEMEN #UPDATE 

و هل من جديد!! اليمن دائما فى حالة حرب من وقت انضمام الجنوب و الحدة ودائما (الدولة) تحارب من يقف فى طريقة و (الدولة) فى اليمن ما هى الا عائلة الاحمر و حاشيتة فقط ,,,, فهمى ملكية لكن تحت اسم الجمهورية و اليمن دولة فاشلة بكل المقيايس من فساد فى كل نواحى الحياة و السلاح ارخص من الطعا و مخدر القات اهم من اى شئ لليمنين 

القات هو من الاسباب الرئيسية فى تدمير اليمن حيث دمر الاقتصاد ة دمر زراعة البن فى اليمن وانهاء المخزون المائى فى اليمن كلة حتى ان اليمن اصبحت اول عاصمة فى العالم بلا موارد مياة.

و ال سعود من اكثر من 60 عام و هما يحاربون اليمن من خلال مرتزقة من السياسين و المحاربين فى كل موسسات الدولة العفنة, حتى ال سعود استعلوا امريكا نفسة لتدمير الجمهورية فى اليمن, و دفع مليارات لزعماء القبائل لشراء سلاح وافتعل الفتنة فيما بينهما.

و زرع الخلافات فى ما بين اهل الجنوب و تحريضهما على الانفصال, حتى قامت ثورات التقسيم للشرق الاوسط الجديد و النظام العالمى و اهمية اليمن فقط فى باب المندب و البترول و الغاز ال>ى تحارب السعودية من اجلة حتى لا يكتشف ولكى يكون اليمن فقيرا.

و من بعد خلع على عبدالله صالح وهميا فقط وافتعل رئيس وهمى و لكن الحاكم الحقيقى هو صالح وعائلة الاحمر الى تحارب من اجل السيطر على خيرات اليمن البكر, اليمن دولة ليست فقيرة ولكنة دولة منهوبة وخيراتة تحت الارض لم تكتشف حتى الان.

و تدخل ايران لمساندة الحوثيين ماديا و عسكريا وكانت اقصى طموح مجموع الحوثى هى حكم محافظة عمران فقط.

وطبعا ال سعود حاربوهما حيث اصبح الحوثثين يد ايران فى اليمن وبالتالى لن تقف ال سعود متفرجين.

الحوثييين يتحركون باوامر صالح و ايران الان ولكن الان اصبحت حالة الحرب رسميا و ضاع اليمن السعيد بسبب الخونة والعملاء و المرتزقة دمروا اقدم دولة فى التاريخ.

و دور قطر الخبيث فى تدمير اليمن و مصر و تونس 

الحوثييون..
عجزوا عن احتلال قرية دماج والتي تبلغ مساحتها3 كم
فـ كيف اليوم يسيطرون على اليمن!!!
لاتقولون إيران!!!!!

Early today: Empty sentry post normally used by presidential guards outside Pres. Hadi's home compound #yemen pic.twitter.com/vTURmGCaN6
— Yara Bayoumy (@yarabayoumy) January 21, 2015

RT @sinanyiter: Tribal leader Sheikh Hamad bin Waheed: ''Mareb is not Amran! we are ready to face with Houthis'' pic.twitter.com/XNN0L8VEIJ
— Iona Craigأيونا كريج (@ionacraig) January 21, 2015

The real frontline in the Houthi conflict MT @sinanyiter: Tribal soldiers in #Marib, protection from Houthi attacks pic.twitter.com/R8PvVYZ653
— Iona Craigأيونا كريج (@ionacraig) January 21, 2015

#الله #يسر

A video posted by Akrăm Al Jăhmee 😏 (@akram_aljahmi) on Jan 18, 2015 at 11:26pm PST

#اليمن Tweets #yemen Tweets يتابع ......

#Nelson_Mandela and His legacy for #Yemen

Nelson Mandela was buried today at his family home in Qunu, South Africa. Over the last few days I have been reflecting on Mandela’s life, his achievements, and how – through the art of forgiveness, reconciliation and the power of dialogue – Mandela brought about visionary and historic change in South Africa. With the change happening all around us in Yemen, I wondered what we could learn from Mandela.

Last Tuesday, more than a hundred current and former heads of state or government attended Mandela’s memorial service to commemorate his life and times. The US’s President Obama and Cuba’s Raul Castro shook hands, showing that Mandela could help reconciliation from beyond the grave. As those who spoke at the service made clear, Mandela was an inspirational, visionary leader who became a legend in his own lifetime, and never forgot the values that were important to him.

Mandela’s dream was to see black and white South Africans living together as equals. So as part of the African National Congress Party, Mandela organised a resistance movement against the apartheid government. He was jailed for life in 1964 for his activities. The story could have ended there, but it didn’t.

Whilst in prison, Mandela overcame his own feelings of rage and bitterness towards the government for all the abuses and discrimination black South Africans had suffered under apartheid. But perhaps more importantly, Mandela learnt how to forgive, how to reconcile, and recognised the importance of looking forward, not back.

The lessons of forgiveness, reconciliation, looking forward, unity over a common dream, and the power of dialogue ring very true for Yemen today. They are the very issues that Yemen is grappling with in its transition.

As we saw in 2011, the glue that brought together the revolutionary youth, women and other proud Yemenis was their common dream to create a democratic, accountable and free society. One where there is a basic relationship between a government that listens to the needs of its people (water, security, electricity, health, education), and a people that mobilises civil society and the ballot box to put in power a government that will deliver those needs.

South Africa today still faces many challenges. Even with such a unique leader, Mandela could not change the country overnight – indeed, that was not his role. He was clear that each and every person had a responsibility to do their part. In his own words: “A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”

I sense fear in some Yemenis that whatever good they try and do, it will not make a difference. That the price of trying against entrenched interests will be too high. Mandela had some advice for you: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

And in spite of the difficulty of the task, he advised: “it always seems impossible until it’s done.” Sometimes, a successful transition in Yemen seems impossible, but one day, with the efforts of all Yemenis, it will be done.

By jane marriott Ambassador of Great England in Yemen

Brave Little Girl Flees Forced Marriage, Records Powerful Testimonial #yemen

Brave Little Girl Flees Forced Marriage, Records Powerful Testimonial

 

The longstanding severity of Yemen's child marriages is gaining some much needed sunlight this week after a young survivor of this shocking custom took it upon herself to speak out on behalf of the untold many who can't.

Nada al-Ahdal, an 11-year-old from Sana’a, had been promised by her parents to an adult suitor not once, but twice.

The "gifted singer" had been raised by her uncle Abdel Salam al-Ahdal since practically birth, and had been given the opportunity to go to school and learn English.

Abdel Salam, who was also raising a nephew and his aging mother, attempted to guard young Nada from any attempt by her biological parents to marry her off to a rich groom, having experienced the death of his sister by self-immolation over an arranged marriage.

When Nada turned 10, Abdel Salam learned that Nada's mother and father had indeed sold her off to a Yemeni expat living in Saudi Arabia.

He phoned the groom in a panic, desperate to get him to rescind his offer.

"I called the groom and told him Nada was no good for him," Abdel Salam told the Lebanese publication NOW. "I told him she did not wear the veil and he asked if things were going to remain like that. I said ‘yes, and I agree because she chose it.’ I also told him that she liked singing and asked if he would remain engaged to her."

The man was persuaded to call the whole thing off, leaving Nada's parents "disappointed."

Months later they arrived in Sana'a, ostensibly to visit their daughter, but in reality were there to kidnap her and attempt another arranged marriage.

Nada asked to be returned to her uncle, but was told she had already been promised to someone.

Saying she would run away, Nada's family reportedly threatened her with death, but were unable to stop her escape.

She reunited with her uncle, who took her straight to the authorities.

After an investigation was opened into the forced marriage allegations, Nada's dad suddenly backed off the idea, and permitted her to continue living with her uncle.

"I managed to solve my problem, but some innocent children can't solve theirs," Nada said in a confessional released yesterday by MEMRI-TV. "[A]nd they might die, commit suicide, or do whatever comes to mind...It's not our fault. I'm not the only one. It can happen to any child."

We wish to inform you that tomorrow you will be executed

Muhammad Haza’a is one of some 180 people facing death in Yemeni prisons for crimes they allegedly committed when they were under 18.

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He is due to be taken out of his crowded prison cell tomorrow morning and shot.

Those who supported our call last week to save him from execution appear to have bought him a precious extra week of life, but would have hoped that his case be reopened and dealt with justly, according to the law, not that he would be subjected to a cold-blooded killing.

We were shocked when we first received the phone call that Muhammad Haza’a was going to be executed within 24 hours.

Capital punishment is unfortunately common enough in Yemen, but the authorities would normally at least grant the prisoner a couple of days between formally telling them and ending their life.

Equally shocking was the fact that Muhammad had “proof” that he was under 18 at the time of his alleged crime.

We only had a few hours to do something. We had lists of alleged juvenile offenders on death row in Yemen, but Muhammad’s name was not on them. We knew nothing about him or his case. Yet we trusted our source and knew that the information he had provided us was highly likely to be correct.

Our source had himself been about to be executed a few years ago as a juvenile offender, when Amnesty International, with the help of other organizations, intervened; he felt that Amnesty International saved his life and regularly supports our work.

After we received the call, we urgently sent emails, made calls and issued appeals. At first we only received automated messages by email and were confronted with piped musical recordings by phone.

But one breakthrough here and another there soon created momentum. International and local organizations jumped in and phone calls to the Yemeni President and the General Prosecutor’s office brought the promise that the execution would be postponed and the case reviewed.

That was on Tuesday, 26 February. Less than a week later, the following Monday, two parallel events occurred.

In the city of Tai’zz, where Muhammad has been held, the head of the Appeal Court there filled in a form no longer than four lines and sent it to the prison authorities. It probably took him or his assistant less than a minute to fill in the blanks. The execution date is set for Saturday, 9 March 2013, it read. He added a line underneath: “We advise that security measures are taken on the above mentioned date of the execution.”

That last line was added in anticipation of protests. There were rumours that other death row inmates were planning to prevent the prison authorities from taking Muhammad to his execution.

Rumours were also emerging that a demonstration in front of the prison was being planned.

Local and international activists were making calls and noise about the unfairness and illegality of the sentence besides the inhumane nature of the execution itself. The head of the court apparently considered that all these calls warranted by way of response was a single sentence of warning at the bottom of an execution order.

In the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, meanwhile, the General Prosecutor signed a form ordering the prosecution in Ta’izz to refer Muhammad’s case to the relevant courts for review on the basis that there remained a dispute about his age at the time of the alleged offence.

Muhammad’s lawyer decided to personally take the form signed by the General Prosecutor to the relevant authorities in Ta’izz because he knew that if the document was faxed or sent by post, it would probably either arrive too late or mysteriously disappear.

It took him around four hours to drive the 260km south from Sana’a to Ta’izz. The lawyer was met, but the form was not accepted. Apparently the Ta’izz authorities were too unhappy with the attention Muhammad’s case had brought and so have simply refused to follow the laws of their own country and forward a case to the relevant courts when being ordered to do so by their superior.

It would surely be unconscionable for an execution to go ahead essentially because some officials had felt emboldened to flout instructions, but that seems to be the situation as things stand.

We continue to call on the Yemeni President, the General Prosecutor and the relevant authorities in Ta’izz to immediately suspend the execution of Muhammad Haza’a and to order a retrial that is fair and does not resort to the death penalty.

#yemen in photo`s

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Bab al-Yaman. Sana’a. Yemen in Yemen