31 December 2021.
As we head into the new year, 2022, candles are lit and fireworks are set off around the world. But for Yemenis, their bleak years drag gloomily, and if the war is not brought to an end, their new year comes while the warring parties are preparing for a new round of hostilities that may prove no less devastating and miserable for civilians than previous rounds.
For many Yemenis, it is a new year of descent into vagrancy, displacement, detention, disappearance, torture in the dungeons of warring parties; killing and injury; cutting off roads and highways and other forms of banditry; poverty, deprivation, and suffering; rising prices and profiteering from people’s needs and livelihoods.
Here, celebration remains subject to the impulses of conflicting parties and their regional and international abettors, and they alone have the real opportunity to make peace and restore the joy that has been stolen from them for nearly eight years. All this must stop now for the Yemenis to re-engage in normal life, to exchange greetings and joy with each other, and to enjoy the security and stability which have left their world forever.
On this occasion, Mwatana for Human Rights renews its commitment to stand with all victims of this conflict against all perpetrators and will endeavor with all its energy and effort to advance justice and create a space for accountability and redress.
A new year in which we hope that accountability is not only a prerequisite for the protection of civilians, but a path to peace.
May Yemen be happy again as it always was, and many happy returns to everyone.
