Heavy rain-triggered flash floods in Taiz, in southwestern Yemen, swept away 11-year-old Aylul Aiban al-Sama’i on Thursday evening. His body was found on Friday near al-Amira Dam in the al-Huban area, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi group, after hours of searching by civil defense teams and volunteers.
According to local sources who spoke to Al-Hal Net, the boy went missing in the al-Kawthar neighborhood in the city center as floodwaters surged, carrying him away through the main drainage channel.
Front lines: a Houthi divide that besieges Taiz
Rescue teams continued search operations along the flood channel, reaching areas close to the front lines with the Houthi group, which has besieged the city for years.
The sources said reaching the site where the body was found required coordination through humanitarian mediation to secure passage for the teams to the dam area, before the body was taken to Taiz city, where the funeral was held after Friday prayers at al-Saeed Mosque and burial took place in the “Martyrs’ Cemetery.”
In a separate incident, another child died after being swept away by floodwaters in Wadi al-Dahi, despite attempts by residents to save him, as tragedies are repeated with every rainy season without any real solutions to stop the loss of life.
Local sources say opening culverts to drain debris during rainfall, a common practice, increases the danger of floodwaters surging through neighborhoods, amid the absence of any serious effort to address the problem.
An incident that brought the siege back into focus
Aylul’s death brought back into focus the reality of the Houthi siege imposed on Taiz, where the flood channel runs between areas separated by open front lines, making access there a complicated journey that took hours instead of minutes.
In this context, journalist and writer Abdul Salam al-Qaisi said the incident “reminded everyone that Taiz is still a besieged city, and that the distance that would take a minute under normal circumstances turns into a long road because of the front lines.”
He added that “people were following the flood channel until they ran into the front line, where movement stops because of snipers and mines,” noting that what happened “linked the city’s parts in people’s minds, even if in a painful way.”
He said the incident revived discussion of a reality that has remained present for years and still does, despite waning debate over it, referring to the restrictions imposed by the Houthis on residents’ movement inside the city.
An absent authority and a recurring tragedy
Meanwhile, activists blamed the local authorities in Taiz for the recurrence of such incidents, citing poor maintenance of flood channels and the lack of safety measures, especially in flood-prone neighborhoods.
The death of the child Aylul remains one of a series of tragedies that recur with every rainy season, but this time the route, from the city center to front-line areas, put everyone face to face with the siege that continues to be imposed daily on civilians’ lives in different ways.
