Ahmed Jahaf is an artist and graphic designer living in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. He uses his art to
raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and to speak up against the over 4 years long
war on his country led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States and other western countries.
The graphic showcased in this article represents some of Ahmed's work, to see more from his art visit:
www.ajahaf.com and follow him on twitter @A7medJa7af
This article belwo was written by Ahmed as an introduction to the upcoming book " U.S. and Saudi Arabia War on the People of Yemen" by Azza Rojbi, published by Battle of Ideas Press, Vancouver, Canada.
My child fell asleep while watching cartoons, so I carried him, tucked him into bed and went to my bedroom. My wife was asleep, the electricity went out and I couldn’t fall asleep, I opened my laptop to watch an episode of a documentary and suddenly huge explosions rocked the capital Sana’a from all sides. I couldn’t stop myself and yelled loudly while running towards my child's room, I picked him up, I did not know where to go or what was happening so we went to the first floor of the house. We saw the signs of horror and confusion in the faces of all members of our family, the children were screaming frightened, shocked by what had happened and we couldn’t even try to calm or comfort them. My brother, who was traveling in China, called to tell me that Saudi Arabia announced the start of a military operation and is now bombing Sana'a. I could not talk to him for much longer because of the sounds of explosions, shelling and heavy aerial flights... These were the first hours of the night of March 26, 2015.
On March 26, 2015 Saudi Arabia announced from Washington the beginning of military operations against Yemen, and the formation of a coalition of more than ten countries with logistical and military support from the United States, Britain and other global powers. And so began the suffering of the Yemeni people under bombardment from land, sea and air and under the naval, aerial and land blockade on Yemen, while by contrast the arms and weapons factories all over the world began signing deals to supply arms, weapons and accessories to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They are making millions of dollars from this war while the Yemeni people are suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, and certainly the world will not move to stop this suffering because it is winning and benefiting and continuing to sign deals at the expense of Yemeni blood.
We are now in the fifth year of this war, which has been paid for with the blood of thousands of Yemenis. In return, the Saudi treasury paid billions of dollars in several areas, including the purchase of weapons, the purchase of allegiances and the change of policies, and the purchase of the conscience of some human rights organizations in exchange for their silence about what is happening in Yemen. The world discovered that this Saudi-led coalition could not win any victory, so it began to use blackmail to opportunistically earn billions of dollars from it.
While the world is continuing its silence paid for by the massacres in Yemen, there were voices calling to stop these atrocities, I like to call them the "voice of angels", those who stood with us and our suffering without any motives or interests, who stood with us only because they are human beings and their hearts are beating. We have seen many protests and demonstrations in several countries such as Britain, France, Canada and Germany, and although their number is small the echo of their actions is disturbing to their governments and sends us hope. We will never forget such stands, we will not forget each organization or group or even an individual that defended humanity through solidarity and against the oppression of the Yemeni people - either by demonstrations or by sending letters and petitions to their governments demanding to stop supporting the Saudi-led coalition, or by breaking the silence and speaking up about this injustice in the media and social media platforms.
Finally, all I wish after the end of the war in Yemen is to invite all who stood with us to visit Yemen, and it will be an honor for me to have them as our guests. This is the least that can be done to express our love for them. Yemenis and history will not forget their honorable stands.
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