Huda Al-Sarari
Lawyer
On May 22, 1990, Yemenis lived a historic moment when the northern and southern parts of the country united under the name “the Republic of Yemen,” and aspirations soared for building a civil state founded on pluralism and justice. That milestone was an extension of a path that began with the September 26, 1962 Revolution, which ended the rule of the Imams in the north and declared the republic. It was a long dream shaped by the blood and sacrifices of Yemenis, and it seemed close to fulfillment with unification.
But the dreams quickly collided with a troubled political reality marked by corruption, monopoly of power, and the marginalization of the south. The summer war of 1994 deepened the wounds and emptied unity of its just meaning.
In 2011, with the wave of the Arab Spring, the street regained its voice, demanding change. The crisis ended with the resignation of Ali Abdullah Saleh and the assumption of the presidency by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in a complicated transitional phase that could have been an opportunity to rebuild the state, were it not for the fragility of political consensus.
The Houthi coup was not a sudden collapse but the result of a deliberate trajectory in which the national dialogue and Yemenis’ desire to build a just state were exploited. Since 2012, the group tightened its grip on Saada outside state authority, then expanded its influence by seizing Amran in 2014 during the national dialogue. It then besieged Sana’a for 47 days under the pretext of bringing down the “fuel price hike.” At that time, it presented itself as a defender of people’s rights, while in reality paving the way for a full-scale coup.
On September 21, 2014, it entered Sana’a and toppled state institutions. Then in January 2015, it placed the president, prime minister, and defense minister under house arrest, declaring its absolute control. What began as populist slogans turned into a national catastrophe. For nine years, more than five million civil and military employees have been deprived of their salaries, in a country where the majority depend on state salaries as their primary source of income. At the same time, fuel prices rose tenfold compared to before the coup. In the name of the people, they confiscated the state; in the name of justice, they deprived millions of their rights. They did not bring down the “fuel hike,” but rather brought down the entire country into an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis.
The war led to the collapse of services and the worsening of what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Human rights organizations have also documented serious violations by all parties: arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances in Houthi-controlled areas, and airstrikes that hit civilians and civilian facilities. Socially, divisions deepened: north/south, sectarian/regional, loyalist/opponent. National values that once united Yemenis gave way to a culture of treason accusations, leaving many Yemenis feeling alienated in their own homeland. Fragmentation was no longer just numbers in UN reports, but a lived reality that eroded any sense of safety and belonging.
Today, more than ever, Yemenis need a state project and a unifying national identity that restore the principles of September and October: justice, equal citizenship, and freedom. A Yemen that embraces all its children—not one reserved for a dynasty or an armed group.
The alienation I experienced was not abroad, but in the heart of Aden, where I had lived all my life. I am a daughter of Aden; I was born in its alleys, grew up with the scent of its sea and the sound of its waves, and wove my dreams in its streets. I knew no homeland but Aden, and I never imagined I would feel estranged in it. But after the 2015 war, everything changed. The Houthi invasion was terrifying, but it was only the beginning of the nightmare. With their withdrawal, narrow regional forces emerged that saw people only through the lens of their origins. In my city’s streets, the questions began to haunt me: “Are you from Taiz?” “Go back to your country…” “Aden is not yours.”
In a single moment, I was transformed from a daughter of the city to a stranger on its land. I was no longer a citizen, but accused of belonging elsewhere. I saw how those who lived and contributed to its growth were excluded simply because they did not belong to the “right geography.” Worse than alienation was being denied mourning. My father, who spent his life in Aden, and my son, whose body rests in its soil—both lie buried there. Yet I cannot visit their graves or stand before the earth that holds them. I stand before the cemetery gate, stretching my gaze inward, but the graves are closer to my heart than my steps can reach. There, where my dearest ones lie, the locked gate reminds me that even grief has become a stolen luxury. When a person is deprived of the right to mourn their loved ones, it means the homeland itself has become estranged from its children.
The Houthi coup was not a passing political event but a national catastrophe that struck Yemenis at their core. Their takeover of Sana’a in 2014 was a blow to the state and the republic, and when they tried to expand into Aden in 2015, they triggered a deep social rift whose price we still pay today. Northerners who had lived in Aden for seven or eight decades suddenly found themselves strangers in a city they had helped build and develop, merely because regional affiliation became the measure of national belonging. Meanwhile, in the north, the Houthis imposed a narrow sectarian ideology that eliminated diversity, confiscated public space, and turned national occasions into taboos. In 2024, for instance, national events were banned, while sectarian celebrations imposed by the group were forced upon the entire society.
The homeland became torn between regionalism that excludes people in the south and sectarianism that crushes society in the north. In both cases, the ordinary Yemeni was lost between walls of imposed identities that denied their citizenship. Today we are double victims: a coup that confiscated the state in the name of “divine right,” and a regionalist reality that confiscated cities in the name of “geographic belonging.” The result is a country without identity, without law, without space where its citizens are equal. Yet despite the pain, the question remains open: can we restore a Yemen that does not ask us where we come from or to which sect we belong, but recognizes us simply because we are all its children? This is the greatest challenge, and this is the true battle
for the republic, for unity, and for the future.
