Escaping from their country to war, leaving behind hunger, violence, death and despair, and looking for an alternative to the nightmare. This leads thousands of Somalis to face the risks of the Gulf of Aden; fleeing on small and unstable boats, exposing themselves to the dangers of the sea, traffickers, and any kind of abuse in order to leave. They will land in Yemen. Many of them have neither money nor forces to continue their travel to richer countries and so they remain here, at least for a while. Encouraged by the generosity of a country that grants them refugee status. In addition to the Somalis, every week people from Ethiopia and Eritrea arrive on Yemeni beaches. Today, however, Yemen is turning into a new nightmare. Thousands of refugees and migrants find themselves trapped in the fighting between government and opposition, some managed to escape from the districts of Sana'a under the blows of artillery, reliving what they hoped to have left behind. As if the violence chased after them, and escape routes were closed.

"We have found solutions for many families, particularly for those with more difficulties, such as those with disabled people. It was impossible to leave them in centers that have literally been invaded by people fleeing; we were able to transfer them to secure housing, out of chaos" says Valentina Pieretto from Sana'a. Valentina is responsible for the protection activities that INTERSOS leads for refugees and migrants in the Yemeni capital: "Every day our work becomes more difficult. The city has been under pressure for many months, the clashes are more intense and often prevent us from moving. The checkpoints increase, and they are more and more heavily armed. Often they don’t let us pass and we have to find alternative routes or wait. There is no electricity, neither water or fuel. Service stations in the city have long queues and even there the situation is tense and it is common to see or hear of brawls and shootings to fights around a petrol station".

"In the city of Aden, the situation is quite peaceful, but bigger clashes are less than 80 km from the city. Here we receive many displaced people, that can now find accommodation in schools closed for summer break", says Andrea Contenta, responsible for the program in the south of the country. 'Now, the extraordinary response of the community of Aden to help the displaced with food and basic necessities helps us a lot, but unfortunately we know that many homes were destroyed and that when the fighting ends, a difficult re-entry will start'.

Many embassies have closed, and only the essential staff of international organizations and NGOs remin in the village. This slows the ability of emergency response, therefore, INTERSOS chose to maintain a large team. "We are humanitarian workers, our goal is to ease the suffering of victims of violence, but in doing that, we have to follow very strict safety rules", says Andrea from Aden. "We try to bring humanitarian aid where it is necessary, finding ways to ensure the international and the Yemeni personnel’s safety, as well as the safety of the people we serve. This makes our work much more difficult, and we know that if something were to happen, we should further reduce our team, and our actions will reach fewer people. Thus, this difficult quest for a better balance is added to our work". "We have long experience in difficult contexts such as Darfur in Sudan, Syria and Iraq" says Marcello Garcia, coordinator for the INTERSOS Africa Program.

‘This experience is essential to understand the current Yemen situation. Thanks to the combination of rules and experiences, we can guarantee humanitarian aid to more than 200,000 persons, even in the present conditions of this country’.