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P RTFOLIO
Micah Albert, an award-winning photojournalist specializing in the Middle East and Africa, is represented by Redux
Pictures.

Yemen: Life on the Edge

Micah Albert

©Micah Albert

—SUNRISE OVER THE PORT OF ADEN, BARELY TWO MILES FROM WHERE THE USS COLE WAS ATTACKED BY
TERRORISTS IN 2000.

TAIZ, YEMEN—“This is the first food I’ve eaten in four days,” Habiba Mohammad
Hassan, a 17-year old Somali girl, tells me as we wedge ourselves into the back of a truck
with more than 40 other refugees. She opens a packet of biscuits given to her by the UN
World Food Program (WFP). Hassan, and 150 others, had just spent the last three days in a
rickety, overcrowded boat, crossing the hazardous Gulf of Aden, fleeing the civil conflict in
the nation she left behind. Just hours before we met, she had landed on the beach at Bab
al-Mandeb, a small port village in far western Yemen. Thousands of people fleeing civil
strife in Somalia have fled safely to Yemen, where refugees are given automatic political
asylum, but survivors report other refugees being forced overboard in deep waters by pi-
rates and traffickers. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has recovered over 500
bodies on the beaches around al-Mandeb.
The trip from the beach at al-Mandeb to the UNHCR’s Al Kharaz refugee camp takes
two hours. On arrival, Hassan and the others are greeted by crowds of Somali refugees,

72 © 2009 World Policy Institute

©Micah Albert

—RAMAH ISMAIL, A SOMALI REFUGEE, RECUPERATES FROM THE TWO-DAY JOURNEY ACROSS THE RED SEA IN A
SMALL STRIP OF SHADE, BEFORE TRAVELING TO THE AL KHARAZ REFUGEE CAMP.

seeking friends and family who may have arrived on the latest boat. Most turn away, disap-
pointed once again. Out of the scorching midday sun, Hassan waits under a corrugated
metal structure to receive food ration cards that will allow five days of cooked meals pro-
vided by the WFP. As she holds her card and stands in the food line, she explains why she
left home in Somalia. “They came into my house and cut out my sister’s eyes and then cut
off her head...when I saw this, I could no longer stay,” says Hassan.
But the quality of life that awaits these refugees in Yemen holds few promises of relief.
The nation is beset with problems: increasing dependence on external food supplies has
only been intensified by climate change, dependence on a dwindling single commodity,
threats of an intensifying seccesionist rebel movement, and massive population growth.
Outside the squalor of the refugee camps, things are little better. The tribal-controlled
areas of northern Yemen are beset with violence and military checkpoints are common. In
the windswept town of Raydah, I met Hayeem Ya’esh, a 66-year-old Yemeni man. Like

Yemen: Life on the Edge 73

most Yemeni households suffering from soaring food prices, he is cutting back on other ex-
penses to ensure his family has their minimum requirements. “I now spend almost 100 per-
cent of my income on food.” This summer, the WFP launched a program to offset the high
prices of food staples, which are threatening millions of food-insecure Yemenis. “The food
from the UN cannot come at a better time,” Ya’esh tells me as he waits to get registered
with the WFP. “My income has never increased, but the cost of food has.”
Yemen’s food insecurity is in part due to the widespread cultivation of khat, the power-
ful, leafy narcotic that supplants necessary, but less lucrative, food crops. Even as the price
of staples continues to rise, there has been resistance to suggestions by international actors
that Yemenis uproot the fields of khat and plant edible crops instead. But perhaps this re-
luctance has more to do with khat’s other benefits: it is an apettite suppressant and needs
little water to flourish. Still, some 40 percent of Yemen’s water is used to irrigate this crop.
Indeed, water is another of Yemen’s immediate crises. Its people consume some 2.8 bil-
lion cubic meters of water a year, while fresh water arriving in the nation’s aquifers rarely
exceeds 2.1 billion cubic meters annually—a 25 percent shortfall. The western part of the
country, where nearly 90 percent of Yemen’s population lives, is expected to run out of wa-
ter in ten years. Finding new acquifers requires expensive well drilling—fresh water is now
only found 1,000 meters beneath the desert, compared with just 40 meters, 25 years ago.
The scarcity of water was made plain to me in the tiny, arid village of al-Horaga, not
far from al-Mandeb. A few dozen families call this unforgiving landscape home, trying des-
perately to scrape by—with little food or water—on the edge of the desert. The aquama-
rine waters of the Gulf, only yards away, offered no respite from the intense heat. It may
seem as if Yemen’s plight is simply the result of geographic misfortune, but political deci-
sions have played a role as well. Yemen’s troubles did not begin with the 1991 Gulf War,
but they certainly were made worse by the government’s backing of Saddam Hussein politi-
cally, if not militarily. In retaliation, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait expelled some one million
Yemenis. These guest workers were a significant source of revenue for Yemen, as they sent
millions of dollars worth of remittances to their families back home. When they returned
en masse, unemployment in Yemen skyrocketed and inflation has run rampant ever since.
Recently, rebel activity in northern Yemen and border conflicts with Saudi Arabia have
prevented the nation from developing its oil reserves. Yemen’s once-thriving refining indus-
try relied on crude oil from Iraq and Kuwait, which dried up during the war and never re-
turned. At the same time, the United States slashed economic aid by nearly 90 percent,
sparking the growth of fundamentalist Islam in Yemen, which has welcomed home a num-
ber of recently released prisoners from Guantanamo. Today, there are fears that the nation
has become a breeding ground for terrorists.
But if Yemen seems inhospitable, Somali refugees have few other options. The new ar-
rivals, if they are fortunate enough to have survived the trip, can choose the purgatory of
life in the UNHCR camp, or risk traveling illegally to surrounding Gulf nations in search of
better opportunities for work. Sitting on a thin mattress inside a UNHCR tent, Ramah Is-
mail, 31, explains, “Even though it is safe here [in Yemen], this is no existence.” Handing
her son to a family member, she continues, “There is no work, no water, and it’s impossible
to grow anything here. This is my second time coming to Yemen. Six months ago, I came
to Yemen and then traveled to Jeddah [Saudi Arabia] to find work. I was arrested and sent
back to Somalia.” Ismail, who arrived in Yemen six days earlier, just used her last food ra-
tion card and was planning to head back to Jeddah the next day. •
74 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • FALL 2009
 ©Micah Albert

—SOMALI REFUGEES FLEEING THE CONTINUAL UNREST IN THAT COUNTRY RISK DEHYDRATION, PIRATES, STARVA-
TION OR WORSE. THIS TEENAGE REFUGEE COLLAPSED FROM HEAT EXHAUSTION AND HUNGER EN ROUTE TO THE
REFUGEE CAMP. [TOP]

—ARRIVING AT THE CAMP, REFUGEES WAIT IN LINE FOR FOOD RATION CARDS PROVIDING FIVE DAYS OF COOKED
MEALS FROM THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM (WFP). THOUGH SAFE FOR NOW, THE REFUGEES ARE UNLIKELY TO
SETTLE IN YEMEN, WHICH CAN BARELY FEED ITS OWN PEOPLE. [BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert
 ©Micah Albert

—HABIBA MOHAMMAD HASSAN, 17, NOW IN THE AL KHARAZ REFUGEE CAMP, SAYS, “THEY CAME INTO MY HOUSE
AND CUT OUT MY SISTER’S EYES AND THEN CUT OFF HER HEAD... WHEN I SAW THIS, I COULD NO LONGER STAY” IN
SOMALIA. [TOP]

—THE UN HIGH COMMISSION FOR REFUGEES, WHICH OPERATES THE CAMP, SEES IT GROWING BY 2,000 REFUGEES
PER MONTH TO A CEILING OF 15,000. MANY WILL LIKELY STAY FOR YEARS, PUTTING PRESSURE ON THE INTERNA-
TIONAL COMMUNITY’S ABILITY TO FEED AND HOUSE THE INFLUX OF PEOPLE. [BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert
©Micah Albert

—NATIVE YEMENIS ARE FACING SIMILAR FOOD PROBLEMS. IN RAYDAH, IN YEMEN’S NORTH, HAYEEM YA’ESH, 66,
FILLS OUT FORMS THAT WILL ALLOW HIM TO BUY SUBSIDIZED FOOD. HE HAS CUT BACK ON OTHER EXPENSES TO
ENSURE THAT HIS FAMILY CAN EAT. “I NOW SPEND ALMOST 100 PERCENT OF MY INCOME ON FOOD.” [TOP]

—HIGH COMMODITY PRICES LAST YEAR AGGRAVATED HUNGER IN POOR YEMENI HOUSEHOLDS, WHICH ALREADY
SUFFER FROM MALNUTRITION. TODAY, THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM (WFP) IS FEEDING MORE THAN 500,000 YEME-
NIS. SOME 40 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION IS MALNOURISHED. [BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert
 ©Micah Albert

—IN AL MAZHEN, A REMOTE REGION OF BARREN, MONOCHROMATIC MOUNTAINS, A 16-YEAR-OLD PREGNANT

GIRL EAGERLY AWAITS THE ROLL-OUT OF WFP FOOD ASSISTANCE. [TOP]

—NABEELA, 12, LIVES ON AN EXPOSED TERRACED HILLSIDE, WHERE REGULAR TEMPERATURES OF MORE THAN 115
DEGREES FAHRENHEIT MAKE GROWING CROPS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE. OF EAST AFRICAN DESCENT, HER FAMILY STRUG-
GLES TO SURVIVE IN THIS REMOTE CORNER OF YEMEN. “WE ARE ONLY ABLE TO EAT ONCE A DAY,” SAYS NABEELA.
[BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert
©Micah Albert

—THE MORE FORTUNATE, LIKE SHEMA, 7, ATTEND SCHOOL AND STUDY ARABIC. BUT SHE IS OFTEN HUNGRY.
“IT’S HARD FOR ME TO STUDY AND DO WELL IN SCHOOL,” SAYS SHEMA. [TOP]

—SHE AND HER 600 NEIGHBORS IN THE ARID, RED SEA COASTAL VILLAGE OF DEBA ARE ALSO THE RECIPIENTS OF
FOOD ASSISTANCE. [BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert
 ©Micah Albert

—OFF THE BEACH OF DOBABA, A SMALL COASTAL VILLAGE, ABDALLA POINTS TO PROMISING FISHING GROUNDS.
OFTEN, HE PICKS UP STRANDED REFUGEES, WHO RISK BEING THROWN OVERBOARD BY PIRATES WHO THREATEN
THE LIVELIHOOD OF YEMENI FISHERMEN. [TOP]

—ONSHORE, IN AN UNFORGIVING LANDSCAPE, FAMILIES SCRAPE BY, DEALING WITH FAMINE AND A PERPETUAL
SEARCH FOR FRESH WATER. THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO TRAVEL FAR FROM THE SEA—THE ONLY LIFE THEY REALLY
KNOW. [BOTTOM]

©Micah Albert