In this screenshot from the Houthi rebel channel Al-Massirah, clothes and shoes outside the entrance of a school in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, after the stampede that killed more than 85 people on April 19, 2023. – / AFP
At the foot of the eight cement steps leading to a narrow schoolyard, only a pile of scattered pairs of shoes and crutches remained early Thursday morning, April 20, witnessing a deadly stampede that swept away the lives of more than 85 people and more than 300 injured in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, according to AFP citing Houthi officials.
The day before, several hundred people – up to nearly 3,000, according to a local police spokesman – had gathered outside the entrance of a school in the old city in hopes of securing financial aid just days before Eid-el-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of the month of Ramadan. That evening, a businessman had planned to distribute 5,000 riyals per person, around 8 euros. But there were too many people.
When the doors opened, the scene descended into chaos. In images from Al-Massirah, the Houthi rebel channel that controls the capital and the north of the country, we see suffocating people being crushed by their neighbors and trying to get out of the death trap themselves. “As they opened the doors, the first fell down the stairs and were trampled on by the next. And so on,” says one survivor. A few guards try helplessly to push the crowd back, shouting, “Back! Resign! »
Acute food insecurity
This tragedy comes in a country already suffering from one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. According to the UN, three quarters of the population or 24.1 million people need humanitarian aid and protection; 17.4 million of them are in a situation of acute food insecurity. Among the Sanaa School dead, whose names have been circulating on announcements on social media, are ministry officials or teachers who have not received a salary since 2015. In the north and the internationally recognized government in the south — a situation made worse by the imposition of a blockade by Saudi -Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over Houthi-controlled areas.
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers Saudi Arabia emerges from the war in Yemen
On Wednesday evening, when the victims of the school were barely evacuated, the reactions quickly took a political turn, the protagonists of the conflict returned responsibility for the tragedy. “We hold the aggressor countries, America, Saudi Arabia and their allies, responsible for what happened and for the bitter reality that the Yemeni people are living in due to the aggression and the blockade,” Mohammed Ali Al said on the night -Houthi, member of the rebellion’s supreme political council.
You still have 54.06% of this article to read. The following is for subscribers only.