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Tag ‘Yemen’

The day of safe heaven

Monday, June 20th, 2011


Ten years ago we marked June 20th for a first time as a special day, dedicated to the millions of people pushed out of their homes by conflicts or disasters. In my travels around the world: in Haiti, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, Yemen, Thailand, Japan, Tunisia, the occupied Palestinian territories, I have witnessed the daily struggles of men and women, children and grandparents to rebuild their lives away from home. As I write this blog I see their faces and hear their stories again. It is a good decision to have a World Refugee Day, to honour them and to lift up attention to their suffering and their aspirations. Read the full entry

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Hospitality over guns – part 2: Hosted by the rebels

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

I brought back many stories from Yemen, but this is a scene I will never forget. We are together with High Commissioner Guterres, facing the senior Al Houthi rebel commanders in the house of a local sheikh. Young boys with stern faces and big guns sit in the back of the room, but their presence soon fades in the background as hospitality radiates from every word and every gesture of our Houthi hosts.

We came here, to the outskirts of Sa’ada, just beyond the checkpoint that marks the entry into Houthi-controlled territory, to appeal for access of humanitarian workers to the internally displaced and other affected Yemeni who live there. Read the full entry

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Hospitality over guns – part 1: Yemen’s untold story

Monday, January 17th, 2011

We all know Yemen as a very dangerous place. Since reunification in 1990, the country has been struggling with conflicts in both the South and the North, and a small, but powerful Al-Qaeda movement raises security concerns on a global scale. Jambiya, the traditional knife all men carry, is proudly on display everywhere, and there is no shortage of more modern weapons of all kinds. Read the full entry

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Travelling to the razor edge

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

My first trip in 2011 is to Yemen, a weak link in a belt of fragile states that spans from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Sudan and Somalia. As I arrived here, the first news that hit was of the kidnapping of three Bulgarians in Darfur – a stark reminder of the problems these countries present.

I arrived in Yemen together with Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for refugees, because we both believe the country deserves much more attention than it receives. Long gone are the days when people came to Yemen because of its incredible historic heritage – traced back to 1,000 years BC. Today, the only window through which the world looks at Yemen, is terrorism. Read the full entry

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