Akhdam in Dar Salam: “Fire burned our huts, but nobody cares” [Archives:2008/1148/Front Page]

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April 21 2008
Twenty families have been displaced by the fire.
Twenty families have been displaced by the fire.
There are over 3 million marginalized living in Yemen today.
There are over 3 million marginalized living in Yemen today.
Amel Al-Ariqi
SANA'A, April 19 ) Twenty Akhdam families still are living without a roof over their heads after a fire broke out last week in the community's slum located in a desert-like area in Dar Salam in southeastern Sana'a city.

The families, who are living in very poor conditions with ashes nearby, are awaiting aid that hasn't arrived yet.

“Our children are sick with diarrhea and scabies. We're suffering in the heat all day and the cold at night. Please help us and our children!” pleaded Ahmed Al-Takrouty, leader of the zone where the fire broke out and whose hut also was burned down.

The fire destroyed some 25 huts in the slum, which is inhabited by more than 200 Akhdam families. The name “Akhdam” is synonymous with Yemen's servant class, who often prefer to be called “the Marginalized,” a term used to describe Yemeni citizens of allegedly African descent.

Despite the fact that the shantytown is located behind a police station, near markets and new construction, these Marginalized are completely isolated and prevented from mixing with others, as well as legally forbidden to build their own houses.

In this current situation, they're neither allowed to remove the remains of their burned huts nor to rebuild or create new ones. “We can't remove the [burned] remains until a government committee pays a field visit to determine whether or not to give us aid,” Al-Takrouty noted, “If we remove the remains before they come, they won't give us anything.”

He said that there have been no official visits to the slum since the incident, although he noted that the nearby police station sent officers ostensibly to prevent the media from photographing or videoing the fire's destruction.

Najiba, a mother of four, recounted, “We saw smoke at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 12 and then we recognized that it was a fire.” She and her family now have crammed themselves in with other three families in a hut built of cartons and old clothes.

“Only women and children were available at the time [of the fire] because the men were at work away from the slum, so we couldn't protect our property. Instead, we just fled our huts, crying and asking for help,” Najiba recalled. Many male members of the Marginalized work as street cleaners during the day.

The owners of wood shops located near the slum called in water container vehicles to extinguish the fire, whose origin remains unknown. Firefighting vehicles arrived half an hour later to help finish the job.

Most of the slum's huts are constructed haphazardly of low concrete blocks, vehicle tires and are full of cheap wooden and plastic furniture. Mountains of trash are visible in any corner of the slum, which smells pungently of smoke.

While the fire caused no injuries or deaths, it did leave many individuals – particularly women and children – homeless, thereby exposing them to rough conditions such as sand and dust storms, which hit the area frequently.

“We were lucky that the whole slum didn't catch on fire,” Al-Takrouty observed, adding, “This is from Allah.”

However, Ali Abdullah Ghalib, executive manger of the national program for Marginalized peoples, has another theory. “Government officials and landowners have resorted to raiding and burning Akhdam slums in an effort to force Marginalized communities to flee and not return,” he said, adding that those residents who resist moving from the site of a fire or who insist on rebuilding their dwellings on the same site are intimidated by police because they have no legal protection for their housing or land tenure.

The Marginalized hold no titles to their residential spaces nor have any right to own property; consequently, they are evicted from their meager dwellings and their homes face raids and destruction. They can be evicted at any time without notice.

Ghalib harshly criticized the Yemeni government, as well as non-governmental organizations – including United Nations organizations – which “pay no attention to this category [of society], which is considered the poorest group in Yemen.

“Although I've sent letters to the concerned governmental authorities and NGOs like the Red Cross, nobody has responded and people still are living out in the open,” he noted.

The fire in Dar Salam isn't the first of its kind, according to Ghalib, who confirmed that such incidents are common in Marginalized settlements, particularly in urban areas like Sana'a, Taiz, Hodeidah and Ibb.

Only in the aftermath of such catastrophes do their residents have access to assistance, which usually comes in the form of tents and some household items, but they receive no public utilities or services, according to Ghalib.

While there are no official statistics to account for the actual number of Marginalized peoples in Yemen, Ghalib estimates the group to be around 3.1 million. Residing in nearly every Yemeni governorate, their social status is that of social outcasts, with a severely poor economic situation and living in constant isolation from the rest of Yemeni society.

“These people are working hard to clean our streets and beautify our cities, but they are forced to live among the waste,” Ghalib noted.
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