A building partially damaged during fighting between government forces and the Houthi rebels is seen in Aden, Yemen, on March 17, 2019. The internal military conflict between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi rebels continues amid lack of political solutions to achieve permanent peace in the impoverished Arab country. Yemen's citizens have been suffering from the four-year devastating conflict that left tens of thousands dead or injured, including at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the United Nations. (Xinhua/Murad Abdo)
by Murad Abdo
ADEN, Yemen, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The internal military conflict between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi rebels continues amid lack of political solutions to achieve permanent peace in the impoverished Arab country.
Yemen's citizens have been suffering from the four-year devastating conflict that left tens of thousands dead or injured, including at least 17,700 civilians as verified by the United Nations.
The fighting produced unbearable consequences for the war-ravaged country and what the UN describes as "the worst man-made humanitarian crisis of our time."
Yemen's citizens remain pessimistic about their country's future following several rounds of peace talks conducted between the two warring rivals under the auspices of the United Nations which failed to achieve success.
"All Yemeni political parties have no choice but to sit together and work to end the country's years-long suffering through peaceful solutions," said a 29-year-old citizen who introduced himself as Wael Al-Kholeedy.
Revealing his suffering from the ongoing conflict, Aden-based citizen Wael, like thousands of other Yemenis, lost his job with a private company as a consequence of the ongoing war that severely paralyzed the country's economy.
He told Xinhua that the country's civil war complicated his family's life and pushed him into working as a taxi driver in order to feed his four children.
"I'm like many other people still suffering due to the consequences of the ongoing conflict that is still stealing the happiness of many families every day," Wael said.
He added that "no hope to come back to my previous work with the private company, for it is still closed because of the situation moving forward into more escalation and collapse."
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after the Houthi rebels forced him into exile and seized much of the country's north.
It was believed that the military intervention in Yemen may continue for a number of months but most of Yemen's people say that it took a longer period and aggravated violence across the country.
For Awadh Abdullah, the humanitarian situation in Yemen reached catastrophic levels because the long period of the military intervention added fuel to the fire and helped in multiplying the already existed crisis in the country.
"The long period of the military intervention didn't benefit the ordinary people but helped to increase the crisis that was already available in Yemen," said Awadh who owns a supermarket in Aden.
"Most of Yemenis supported the intervention during its first days but now they want an immediate end for that military campaign because it made the situation worse than it was before," he said.
He added that "more aerial bombardments against Yemen means that more cases of malnutrition and other diseases will be recorded because military action is not a suitable solution for the crisis."
Other Yemenis, including Fahid Mohamed, do not see a glimmer of hope for a peaceful future or an approaching end for the years-long fighting in Yemen but expect more political divisions and bloody years.
"No one cares about finding a solution for Yemen's crisis because it's getting closer to become a forgotten war that may continue for more years," he said.
"All other neighboring countries want to besiege the militia groups and contain the fighting inside Yemen but don't prefer to end it permanently," he said.
The ongoing fighting between the Houthis and the Yemeni government with daily Saudi-led airstrikes has plunged the most impoverished Arab country in the Middle East into more chaos and violence.
Three-quarters of the population, or more than 22 million people, urgently require some form of humanitarian help, including 8.4 million people who struggle to find their next meal.
