Over the past two weeks, STELP founder Serkan Eren has visited soup kitchens financed by STELP and a tent school in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. Eren had to enter and leave the area controlled by the Huthi rebels via Seiyun, where the internationally recognized government is in power. The 24-hour journey across the desert and minefields was extremely dangerous.
“Just a few hours before Sanaa was bombed, I barely managed to leave the city,” says Serkan Eren. “The Huthi rebels had my passport for several days, I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to get out of there,” explains the activist. After the airstrikes on Sanaa, he is now worried about the STELP staff on the ground and the 2,000 or so children that STELP provides with a meal every day.
“The country is in an extremely poor state. The entire population suffers from great poverty and hunger. I’ve really been to many crisis regions around the world, but the civilian population of Yemen really lacks everything,” he reports on his impressions. “Under the Houthis, the country is sinking into chaos. The rebels simply have no experience in running a state. There is garbage everywhere, traffic no longer works and there is virtually no administration,” he says, describing the situation on the ground. “The victims are once again the children and the civilian population,” Eren continues.
