Yemeni community takes to the streets in protest of war and famine

Over 100 people attended a demonstration Thursday evening in Veterans Park to show their support for the country of Yemen. After meeting up in the park, the crowd marched through the neighborhoods on the southend.

By Charles Sercombe
For the past several years, the country of Yemen has been under siege.
First came Iran-backed militias, who forced the country’s government to flee. Civil war broke out.
That caused the economy to crash: then came bombs from a Saudi Arabia-led coalition.
Then, predictably, famine. And now an outbreak of COVID-19.
Bill Meyer of OneHamtramck is calling it the “largest humanitarian crisis in history.”
This lethal mix of events has stirred the Yemeni community, which has become the Hamtramck’s political powerhouse, to take to the streets in protest.
Such was the case on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, when the Yemeni community, along with what appeared to be outside sympathizers, gathered at Veterans Memorial Park to demonstrate in Yemen’s support, and make the public aware of what’s happening there.
The gathering was sponsored, in part, by a group called Detroit Will Breathe.
On Thursday, Akil Alhalmi, of Hamtramck, told The Review that the situation in Yemen is dire.
“The whole country is dying,” said Alhalmi, who has family in Yemen. “And the whole world is watching, and no one cares. They (the Saudis) bomb wedding parties, and we don’t see anything going on.”
A number of speakers and others have focused on the role of the US, which has been selling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The arms sale, Alhalmi said, “blinds their eyes,” referencing the US government.
The conflict in Yemen gets even more complicated, Alhalmi said. There is a division among two Islamic groups, the Shiites and Sunnis. On top of that, Yemen is a battlefield for a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The result is that the populace becomes the victims, Alhalmi said.
The Yemeni population in the US is also divided, he said.
“We’re not on the same page,” Alhalmi said.

But there is one agreement. The US must stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, and allow Yemeni refugees to come here. The Trump administration has banned refugees from Yemen.
“This makes it more difficult,” Alhalmi said. “We can’t bring families over here.”
After a couple of speakers outlined the hardships that Yemenis are facing, a march began from Veterans Park through the streets of the southend, where most of Hamtramck’s Yemeni community live.
Taking a cue from the Black Lives Matter movement, a chant, accompanied by a snare drum march beat, was repeated over and over: “Yemeni Lives Matter.”
Posted Aug. 28, 2020