in cairo, no more yemeni protest tent

Yemeni protesters have put a temporary end to their sit-in outside the Arab League building in Cairo, after violence flared up again in the vicinity last week-end.

After the Yemeni sit-in tent was destroyed during Cairo's November uprising, a few protesters had nevertheless remained on the edge of Tahrir Square outside the Arab League building, with a few photos and a large Yemeni flag. Even after Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative agreeing to hand over power in Yemen, they remained to protest the part of the deal that ensured his immunity from prosecution. To keep warm at night, they pitched a tent on the pavement and wrapped themselves in heavy blankets. (See photo below taken on November 28, on the first day of Egypt's parliamentary elections.) Peaceful protesters Wael, Ahmed, and Adel were usually there to say hello.

Last Friday, violence re-erupted between Egyptian protesters and the security forces after a protester from the sit-in in front of the cabinet was brutally beaten in the night of December 15 to 16. Redhwan, one of the Yemeni sit-in organisers and a medic student in second year at Cairo University, donned a white coat and helped Egyptian volunteer doctors on the edge of Tahrir Square to tend to the wounded from the front line in Qasr el-Eini street. "It's good practice," he said, with a smile.

The next day, on December 17, the Yemeni tent was burnt down, along with the Syrian flag on the other side of the Arab League gate, the new much larger Bahraini tent next to the closest Metro exit, and all the remaining Egyptian protester tents on the other side of Tahrir. The photo below was taken on December 18. It was as if the tent, first erected on October 24 after Redhwan's friend died tortured at the hands of the police in Taiz, had never existed.

homemade fertiliser and strawberries

I first met engineer-turned-filmmaker Abdulkhaleq Alwan in 2010. In a country where groundwater is depleting fast, this young engineer, then 27, had made water issues fun for a mostly uneducated public.

As head of the awareness department at the capital's branch of the National Water Resources Authority, he talked to farmers about dwindling water resources, the ills of illegal well drilling, and the benefits of modern irrigation. He had turned himself into a filmmaker, directing spots in which he cast the farmers themselves to spread awareness about good practices in irrigation. He had printed poems by the farmers, and commissioned cartoons.

And then protests and political turmoil hit Yemen. When I wrote to him in May 2011, he and his colleagues hadn't been paid for months. None of the budget for 2011 had been received, and all programs, including colourful public information films, were on hold. Clashes on the road from Sana'a to Marib had meant no diesel for the capital’s water pumps and no water in the network for days. Instead, inhabitants were buying water from private trucks, not unusual in Sana'a, but at much higher prices than before the uprisings.

Now Alwan is studying for a masters in Intergrated Water Resource Management in Germany and Jordan, and hopes to return to Yemen for his thesis next autumn, if the situation permits. I caught up with him on Wednesday at a water utilities conference in Sharm el-Sheikh. At the end of the first day, he was most impressed by Mathias Stief’s talk on making a profit out of treating wastewater in Germany.

In Yemen, like Jordan and Egypt, water utilities are struggling to recover the costs of treating sewage to reuse its water in irrigation, he explained, but in Hamburg, they actually make money out of it! "They sell the sludge. They produce biogas. They sell the heat!" he says, laughing. Yes, a similar system would be possible in Yemen, but only after considerable investment in infrastructure and staff training.

Would it be difficult to convince Yemeni farmers to use the sludge on their fields? Not at all! says Alwan. At the Sana'a treatment plant, barely has sludge been laid out to dry that farmers turn up to buy it. “You can hold an auction!” he says. It's much cheaper than industrial fertiliser, and rich in potassium, phosphates, and nitrogen. Besides, Yemenis are used to sewage-issued fertiliser.

In many villages, including Alwan's outside of the capital Sana'a when he was growing up, each house made its own fertiliser from its small sewage pit. After cooking, ash from the fire would be thrown into it, to prevent bad odours and to start the fertiliser-making process. One or two years later, a mixture that looked like black soil would be extracted from the back of the house and used on the fields, until the end of the 1980s in Alwan's village, and probably until today in remote areas.

Alwan's family used to grow corn, tomatoes and potatoes, but switched to qat and strawberries when water started to become scarce. Wait, strawberries? “It’s a cash crop,” he says. Soon all the other farmers in the area where following suit.

Alwan talks to school children about good water management. Photo courtesy of NWRA

caught up in egypt's protests

When I visit on Monday evening, there are no more than four protesters at what is left of the Yemeni tent outside the Arab League in Cairo, after Egyptian security forces cracked down on neighbouring Tahrir Square on Saturday. In their drive to evict Egyptian protesters demanding civil rule from the square, security forces also targeted the Yemeni and Syrian protesters at its edge, firing tear gas at them, and seizing or destroying all their belongings, they say. "They took everything, laptops, phones," says Wael, a Yemeni student and one of the remaining protesters. "There wasn't even a sock left!" But Wael and fellow protesters have decided to keep going. They have re-wrapped their giant Yemeni flag around some trees, and set about distributing twin badges in support of Yemen and Syria.

Behind Wael, accross Tahrir Square, young Egyptian protesters continue to battle the tear gas of security forces in Mohammad Mahmoud Street after nightfall. A steady stream of injured are carried out on foot, by motorcycle, or in ambulances (see photo above) through the protesting crowds at the centre of the square. At the Omar Maqram mosque, on this side of the square, one of several field hospitals has been set up for the injured, with volunteers via initiatives such as #tahrirneeds and @tahrirsupplies bringing in blankets and medical supplies. In the square, protesters opposing Egypt's military regime chant: "Stay in your place, the square is your square." Over the mosque's loudspeaker, someone warns of live bullets, and urges protesters to stay in the square. By the end of the third day of clashes between protesters and security forces, the media has reported over 1,000 injured and 32 dead.

three weeks outside the arab league

For Yemeni students Redhwan, Amru, and their fellow protesters, tomorrow will mark three weeks of protest outside the Arab League in Cairo. Despite the landmark decision to suspend Syria from the Arab League yesterday, nothing similar has so far followed for Yemen. Here are some photos taken over the last three weeks, in chronological order from bottom to top.

November 12 - Behind the police line, engineering student Ola leads the Yemeni section of the protest in chants, as delegates inside the Arab League vote on Syria's temporary suspension. Before the final decision is announced, Syrians, Yemenis, and Bahrainis protest together outside the main gate. Police attend the event, after a Syrian opposition delegate was pelted with raw eggs several days before.

November 10- It takes two lightbulbs to make a cup of tea in the protester's tent. “The generator can’t handle both [the kettle and the lighting],” explains Redhwan with a grin, as he takes them down.

November 6 - After the first prayer of Eid al-Adha, Yemenis join Syrians to protest against the regimes of Saleh and Assad. Despite one of the Syrian protester leaders announcing that there would be no Eid today but a "funeral for the martyrs", the mood is jovial on the first day of Eid. Old friends reunite outside the tent, and one man licks the remnants of a plate of basboosa, an Arabic cake, off his fingers.

November 1 - Yemen's candidates in this year's Arab Idol, sisters Amal and Houria, sing Dana Ye Dana and other Yemeni songs to fellow Yemenis, Egyptian passers-by, and Taizi opposition figure Sultan al-Samie on a visit to Cairo.

October 28 - A giant poster of Taha al-Juneid dwarfs the photos of other deceased protesters beside him. Medic student Redhwan knew him, and tells me how his friend's story turned the weekly protests outside the Arab League into a permanent sit-in. They abducted and tortured him for being a protester, he tells me. Before, protesters were been killed in the squares, but this was different. “I went out. We’re protesting! I said.” Redwan motions to the large poster of Taha behind him. “That one I printed,” he says quietly. “I paid for it myself.” (Taha's story with graphic images is here.)

October 28 - Engineering student Amru and law student Mustafa, who I found reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho at 8 am that morning, charge their phones from the tent's generator after a shared breakfast with their Syrian neighbours. The Syrian anti-Assad protesters have set up their tent on the pavement on the other side of the Arab League's permanently-closed front gate.

October 26 - As night falls, Yemenis gather in the newly-erected tent outside the Arab League headquarters just off Tahrir Square in Cairo. The make-shift tent, topped, with the Yemeni flag, was put up on October 24. "We ask the Arab League to suspend Yemen's membership," reads the sign.

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid - part 3

The night before Eid, all's well that ends well in the al-Sharif household. Some of the peaceful protesters' rights have been fulfilled, writes Amira al-Sharif.

As published before Al-Sharif's sisters remove the tents and take any things that could refer to demonstration at home. Though there is thing happened not expected that they get some of their demands which is great. They get Eid sweet, nuts, almond, raisin, orange Juice, glasses, spoons, perfumes, and all the ingredients for the cookies.

Right now toys and Al-Sharif's sisters are celebrating in the light of the candle while they still making the Eid cookies. Tomorrow will be the Eid, and all kids at home are excited, though all women so busy in the kitchen, in the early morning our male relatives will come to give us Asb (which an amount of money as a gift), so we will be rich tomorrow.

Al-Sharif sisters declare we love our father.

Correspondent from Sanaa,
Amira Al-Sharif

Happy Eid!

Photo by Amira al-Sharif

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid - part 2

Amira al-Sharif has posted a Facebook update on her sisters' peaceful living room protest for new clothes for Eid, after their father, a protester in the current uprising, announced that price hikes meant no presents this year. She writes:

Al-Sharif's Sisters' Night Meeting and New Decision
November 5, 2011

At dinner the good father looks sad, and eat little bit. Al-Sharif's sisters felt guilty because they thought they hurt his feelings. In a meeting in the candle light, they decided to remove the three tents from inside home as they prefer to stay without new clothes and Eid sweet rather than to see their father being sad. One of Al-Sharif's sister said, "My father felt sad may be he thought we are treating him as the president and it is hard for him to be treated as the tyrant Ali Saleh, at time he is one of the protestors, and doesn't deserve we do tent to demonstrate at home."

Correspondent from home in Sana'a,
Amira Al-Sharif

Photo by Amira al-Sharif

al-sha3b yureed new clothes for 3eid

As Eid al-Adha approaches, the spirit of peaceful protest has reached Sana'a homes, writes Yemeni photographer Amira al-Sharif. Her sisters have been staging a sit-in in their home's living room since yesterday demanding new clothes for Eid. "Al-sha'b yureed kaswat al-Eid," read the signs. "The people want new clothes for Eid." Her father, who has said that there would be no presents this year due to the deteriorating economy and increase in cost of living, has still not given in. When Amira asked him this morning if she could take his photo next to one of the curtain-and-cushion tents in the living room, he reportedly smiled and replied: "Don't be silly."

Amira continues to report on the situation, posting updates on Facebook.

Photos by Amira al-Sharif

cairo's yemenis #SupportYemen

This Saturday, dozens of Yemenis - medic and engineering students, mothers, fathers, children, and even a former major in the Yemeni military - protested in silence outside the Arab League headquarters in Cairo against the ongoing killing of peaceful protesters in Yemen. As Saturday is a day off in Egypt, there was nobody inside the Arab League offices, but the press turned up to cover the event. Similar protests were held at the same time around the world, notably in Dearborn, London, Paris and Amman.

In Sana'a, by midday on the second day of president Saleh's return to Yemen, the media centre at Change Square had reported 40 more deaths.

On the railings outside the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo on Saturday, Yemenis hang portraits of dozens of protesters killed during the anti-government protests in Yemen.

Those who turn up around midday politely greet everyone, then tie a piece of red, white, and black ribbon around their heads, and line up along the side of the pavement to have their mouths taped up for the silent demonstration.

"What evil... Our land is a land of challenges... " says this poster, in Yemeni dialect. The international community's silence will help Saleh kill the people, human rights activist Liza was quoted as saying in al-Masdar online.

"Saleh's regime is bloody and terrorist." Yemeni high school graduate and active tweeter @AbdulazizSakkaf said that joining the protest was the least that he could do.

Over a dozen Yemeni women turned up at the protest. Naguiba, who has lived in Cairo with her two daughters and daughter-in-law since March, said that she had come out to support democracy. "I refuse the war in Sana'a," she said. "I refuse Ali Abdallah Saleh to do this."

Behind the protesters, Yemeni youth activist Redhwan dictates a sentence to law graduate Hani, as the latter dashes off his news about the #SupportYemen protest on his laptop, before sending it off to news websites in Yemen.

the yemeni crisis in cartoons

It's early 2010 after sunset. Another power cut. In the gloom of the old city of Sana'a, a Yemeni man strolls up to the corner shop. "Two of that nuclear power of Ali Abdallah Saleh's, please!" he says. The shopkeeper promptly hands him two white candles.

Power cuts have long been the subject of Yemeni jokes, but perhaps today more than ever. Here are only some of the cartoons by Rashad Assamiee, a young Yemeni cartoonist from Taiz regularly published in al-Jumhuriyya.

A colourful take on the current power, fuel, cooking gas, food, and water crises.

"That's it, I'm handing in my resignation! This is no life, working 24 hours a day..."

"No, that's it. We're going back to Somalia. Everything is in crisis with you! Electricity, water, diesel, petrol... There's even more fighting than in Somalia!"

(From right to left)

"Lunch, qat, mattress... Are you going on a trip?

- No Uncle Abdu, we're going to get cooking gas..."

"There's electricity! Hurry up before it cuts..."

"I have a lecture on Modern Mechanics in the afternoon and tomorrow one on Progress and Technology..."

Electricity cut: "Alright children, no one moves from their place! Let's not knock the water pipe over..."

(From right to left)

"The only thing is that before using it, you have to charge it for a full eight hours...

- What a nightmare! We don't even get eight hours of electricity a day!"

(From right to left)

"Humadi dear, wake up! The cooking gas just finished...

- Argh! The cooking gas man was in the middle of filling up three cylinders for me, and then you came and woke me up..."

"I'm guarding the car, uncle, so that they don't steal our petrol. We barely filled it up to half."

"Don't worry about the girl's mahr [gift from the groom to the bride usually including material, perfume, and gold], my son. Just bring me two gas cylinders, two canisters of petrol, two canisters of diesel and half a box of candles..."

putting gender back in water

In rural Yemen, it's a girl's job to fetch water. Girls often have to make long, back-breaking journeys to bring water home, a full-time job that can keep them out of school. If they grow up without an education, these girls are more likely to marry early, have a larger family to feed, die in childbirth, and bring up malnourished children. They are less likely to make themselves heard socially and politically, encourage their children's education, or contribute to their country's development.

Yemen's water crisis is complex and all-encompassing, with repercussions on many aspects of human development. Intricately linked to the country's alarming food insecurity, it is a challenge that remains increasingly important to tackle effectively - whoever is in power.

The following photos, that I took between 2008 and 2010 and that were recently awarded a reporting trip to Portugal with the EJC, take a look at the Yemeni water crisis through women's eyes.

Because a girl carries water - Shahara, North Yemen, 2009 - Siham, barely 10, carries water back home from a rainwater pool in her village. It's a girl's job to fetch water in rural Yemen, and those who have to walk miles every day to find water often miss out on an education. But Siham is lucky, and every morning she attends the village's girls primary school. After her picture was taken, she quietly asked for a pen.

Balancing buckets - Shahara, North Yemen, 2009 - In their bright plastic buckets, women collect water from one of the village's rainwater pools. Because it has been long since it last rained, the level inside the pool has dropped.

Eid water - Beit Baws, North Yemen, 2008 - Two girls carry water home from a pool at the bottom of their cliff-top village, on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sana'a. It's Eid al-Adha, an important Islamic festival, so the youngest girl is wearing lipstick.

Running the water home - Sana'a, North Yemen, 2010 - In cut-out jerry cans, two girls run home with the water they have collected from the local mosque. Despite a public water network in most of the Yemeni capital, in 2010, residents complained that the pipes ran dry for at least half of the month.

Tap to to dwindling groundwater - Amran, North Yemen, 2009 - A mother collects water from the public water tap. She makes several trips before she has enough for the day. Below the city where she lives, the groundwater level drops by three meters every year.