The return of fighters from the fronts sparked looting and land disputes
English - Thursday 13 July 2023 الساعة 05:05 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, exclusive:
The Social Impact Monitoring Project said that Yemen is witnessing an increasing level of local conflict over lands and resources, and its intensity has increased in all areas controlled by Iran's terrorist arm militias after the end of the armistice in October 2022.
The report of the Social Impact Monitoring Project, issued at the end of last June, confirmed that the highest incidents of looting and land disputes were mainly in the governorates of Hodeidah, Ibb, Sana'a, and Sana'a City.
According to the report, data and observations indicate that, since April 2022, there has been an escalation in local and tribal conflict throughout Yemen over lands, blood feuds, family quarrels, and economic disputes related to taxes and revenues.
The report indicated that many tribesmen returned to their countries (places of origin) as a result of the decrease in general violence as a result of the truce, with the aim of benefiting from or selling their lands, but their lands were confiscated or sold by other family members.
According to Civilian Impact Monitoring and data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, many of those who have returned are unable to access their land due to a lack of legal ownership documents or changes in tribal leaders.
The report indicated that with continued economic decline and high levels of social and political tensions, competition for natural resources, including land, is intensifying, leading to conflict and directly affecting people.
Conflicts directly affect people's lives and severely hinder social and economic development. According to statistics from the Ministry of Interior, around 4,000 people die each year due to violent conflicts over land and water.
The social and economic importance of land is usually the most valuable asset that people have, and separation from the land in the ancestral village is considered very serious, as the land represents their connection to the village and the origin of their family and tribe.
The report pointed out that leaving the inconsistent payment of salaries and political fragmentation, and many offices of local public institutions either in a state of complete collapse or operating at a minimum level, which is not enough to carry out any formal land management activities, as this led to ineffective land management.
The Social Impact Monitoring Project said that some owners of the lands to which the displaced have moved either allow them to stay temporarily, or they are not in the area and do not realize that the displaced are living on their lands, or they do not have the ability to remove them.
The report concluded that after the end of the war, people will return to these homes and demand the return of their lands, and at that moment the real conflict will begin, because these properties are not owned by the government, and the land on which they reside belongs to certain tribes.
