The war in Yemen is seeing a desperate search for wealth among refugees and migrants Stories of humanitarian problems

Seiyun, Yemen In the early years of Yemen’s war, which began in September 2014, food and shelter were sufficient in the camps where most of the country’s population lived. 4.8 million refugees (IDPs).

But nearly 12 years of conflict and growing instability have created problems inside and outside the IDP camps, while the collapse of the Yemeni rial has fueled inflation. severe food crisis from 2022, and more than half of the population is experiencing severe food insecurity.

An example of this is Maryamah, one of the many IDP camps Seiyuna city in the eastern region of Wadi Hadramout in Yemen, home to approximately 4,899 refugee families.

Home to steep mountains and a vast desert plain, Maryamah once saw a steady flow of aid from international aid agencies, but over the past four years this has steadily declined over the past four years due to a lack of funding and other factors.

Ali Sagher Shareem, 51, who two years ago made the grueling 1,000-kilometer journey from his home in Hodeidah, western Yemen, to Maryamah, said his escape came at the worst possible time.

“I heard that there was help here before, but since I arrived, I haven’t received anything,” Shareem told Al Jazeera.

‘Living in the oven’

Shareem, his wife and three children live in a small, windowless house assembled from discarded wood and tarpaulin sheets.

Seiyun was a resource for Shareem and other families, who found casual work outside the camp to supplement their income, but the local economy has sunk into the abyss.

“If I get a job and earn money, we eat. If I don’t, we go to bed hungry,” said Shareem. “I can’t provide food for my children or medicine for my wife – no one has helped us.”

Residents of the camp, who come from more than a dozen Yemeni provinces, including the capital Sanaa, say the situation is getting worse every day.

This condition is not supported when the deadly fighting began in December between the Yemeni army, loyal to the internationally recognized government, and the separatist groups of the Southern Transitional Council (STC).

When summer arrives, temperatures hover around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), and long-term power cuts mean there is no way for refugee families to cool their tents, with conditions inside their makeshift homes “like ovens”.

For Shareem’s family, there has been increasing concern over his wife’s illness, frequent hospital visits and prescriptions adding to their high costs.

“When my wife is sick, I take her to the hospital. The doctor asks for scans, labs and other procedures, but most of the time she just injects. Most of the time, I couldn’t buy the medicine she needed,” said Shareem.

Some refugee families are making the difficult decision to drag their children to school, skip meals or ask neighbors and friends for help.

“I don’t remember the last time my family ate three meals a day. The first thing I do when I get money is to buy flour for one meal,” said Shareem. “We haven’t eaten meat for a long time. When I get money, I buy half a chicken – we cook half of it for one meal and save it for the next day.”

Financial problems

Mohammed Mohammed Yahya, an octogenarian doctor from Tihama area of ​​Hajjah province, came to Seiyun six years ago with his wife and five children.

He lives in a small room, which he shares with three members of his family, with little ventilation, almost no natural light, and the heater is useless due to constant power cuts.

“When the power goes out, the tent is like hell … when it rains, the tents sink,” he said.

Yahya was forced to cut down the trees found inside the camp and sell the wood to buy a bag of tomatoes and yogurt for his family.

The war in Yemen between the Iran-backed Houthis and the internationally recognized government has resulted in the direct and indirect deaths of 377,000 people, according to the last major report of the United Nations of war casualties, published in 2021.

The Yemeni government’s refugee agency says more than 10,000 displaced families are living in Wadi Hadramout, with 4,823 families – or 38,487 people – in Seiyun alone.

Nadia Saif al-Fakhiri, operations manager at the government-run IDP camps in Hadramout, described the situation as dire.

“Things are very difficult and they have no priority,” he told Al Jazeera. Many families cannot afford two meals a day.

Extreme poverty

Residents of nearby villages were once financially stable enough to provide food and support to Maryamah’s refugee families. Their financial situation now means they are also starving.

Some local families believe that the situation is worse than those inside the Maryamah camp and are asking for a portion of the limited aid that reaches the IDPs..

“Those people are better than us,” Mr Salah, a hospital manager in Seiyun, told Al Jazeera.

“When I meet with aid agencies, they tell me that the aid is for refugees. I have four children who do not have enough food – my salary is 50,000 Yemeni riyals (working at $33 according to the exchange rates of the governments).

Khaled Hassan, a retired teacher, was living well with a pension of $370 a month when the IDPs entered Seiyun in 2017.

Today, due to inflation, his pension is now only 85 dollars and he is exhausted within a week, forcing him to spend his days driving a three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxi from morning to night to supplement his meager income. Even so, feeding his family is not enough.

“We are also poor,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to the IDPs. “They return home during Eid and get help everywhere.”