Conditions in Historical City of Al-Mokha

At first glance, it may seem like an abandoned city.

From long ago,

but our field tour through its streets and alleys

reveals that we are in the heart of historic Al-Makha.

Crumbling historic houses, dirt roads,

and almost nonexistent services.

A scene that sums up the reality of the city's residents,

who lived through years of neglect while the occupation's

tools were preoccupied with other projects

unrelated to their needs.

Nine years of the occupation's tools controlling

Al-Makha brought the residents of its old neighborhoods

no service projects that addressed their needs,

no paved roads and no adequate projects

for electricity and water,

nor any service infrastructure to rescue the city

from its deteriorating state. Instead,

attention was directed toward building cities

and residential communities for those brought in

from outside Al-Makha, revealing where

priorities lay during the years of occupation.

Look at the state we're in. What's the city's condition? What's

the condition of its residents?

They haven't cared about it at all. This is just a little...

One house is inhabited, while another nearby is demolished and abandoned.

By God, they haven't asked about us at all. We have to toil with our own hands.

If we don't work hard, we don't eat.

We don't eat. If we work hard, they take what we earn.

You can see the roads, film them.

They weren't like this before. You can't possibly ruin them and then fix them.

But these Saudis have destroyed and exhausted us.

They haven't left anything.

Everything, everything, everything is Saudi. Saudi prices have risen, risen, risen.

What could we do about these Saudis?

An hour costs 700, another costs 500, another 400. It goes up and down.

There's no electricity.

Electricity costs one thousand riyals per unit. The unit is measured by the hour.

As for water, now what's available is no longer enough.

The contrast between old Mokha's reality and what

was built outside its neighborhoods reveals the nature of the project

run by the tools of occupation. The money and resources

that were absent from improving the residents' lives appeared when

it came to recruitment and enlistment

and settling imported forces to serve the project

of mercenarism,

while the city's residents were left to face deteriorating services

and the hardship of living conditions

and economic conditions.

I hope, as one of the city's residents, that all

services provided

take people's circumstances into account

and the poverty surrounding them,

and be free of charge.

Today, Mokha's people express their relief

at security and stability's return after expelling Saudi enemy reinforcements,

hoping their city will move beyond a period in which

hoping their city will move beyond a period in which

Mokha's people were not a priority and that

efforts will turn to addressing the legacy of

years of neglect and restoring services to a

historic city whose people were excluded even

from the projects built on their land.

From Mokha City, Samir Al-Mutarrab, Al-Masirah.