It is with great sadness that i heard about the IY626 Sanaa to Comoros plane crash on Tuesday morning. I know several Yemenia cabin crew, thankfully they werent on that flight, however of course their colleagues were and they are all very upset.
I quite often get asked what it is like to fly Yemenia. Is it safe? being the real point of the question. I have flown in first class and economy class on Yemenia over 30 times, on routes inside Yemen and also to London, Rome, Dubai and Jeddah.
My …

Chewed some extraordinary Qat last week, freshly plucked from the fields of Wadi Dhar. Was promised the best sleep of my life. Indeed, i was out for about 13 hours.
Subject of the chew was mainly to do with Iran elections and the Saa’da kidnapping.
The latest theories on the kidnapping – in which actually only 3 bodies have been discovered not known publically what has happened to the other people – are as follows:
1. Jihadist freelancers funded by Saudis popped over the border from a camp in Saudi and did it
2. …

Update 1845 Sana’a. It is increasingly likely that a group aligned to Al Qaeda and based in northern Yemen has committed this atrocity. Whether all 9 have been killed or whether 7 have been killed with 2 of the children being found alive, is not confirmed.
At some point between Friday 12th June and Monday 15th June,  a picnic arranged by a group of 9 foreigners in the Saa’da region in north Yemen, turned into a horror story. We know that at least 7 bodies have been found, 3 German women …

In late May, The Guardian had an excellent report on a group of tourists visiting Yemen from the UK.
As with everything we are told, taught or preached to about, context is everything. Kevin Rushby’s article is one of the best i have read in that it sets western life – notably British life – in context with how many people miss-perceive countries such as Yemen. In particular i like the juxtaposition between knife crime in Britain, the Yemeni jambiya worn by most Yemenis in the north of Yemen, and the …

On Sunday 4 South Korean tourists were killed in a suicide bomb attack in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Shibam Hadramout. 2 Yemenis working as tour guides were also killed. A number of others in the group were injured. I also understand that 4 Spanish students were close by and were not injured.
Here’s some links to the story:
BBC – Tourists Die In Explosion
Reuters – Qaeda Bomber Behind Yemen Attack Trained In Somalia
CNN – Al Qaeda Blamed