Osamah Mahyoub wasn’t always a man on the run, or the target of a murderous rebel group. He used to live a comfortable life in Taiz, a city in Yemen with chocolate-brown masonry and some of the finest coffee in the world. He was a happy child who played soccer all day long with his favorite cousins, Abdelsalam and Jamil. Sometimes, if the cousins promised to be good, they were allowed to go to the market with Mahyoub’s uncle, a local imam, to buy mangoes, tomatoes and onions. Soccer, cousins, the market. Happy memories. When Mahyoub grew up, he studied accounting at a local college and was making a good living at it until his home became the setting of a new story: a bloody, never-ending war. Taiz became a city of snipers, and Mahyoub became a target. In March 2015, when Mahyoub was 27 years old, the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group, captured Taiz. Members of the group demanded that Mahyoub’s uncle give up his home in the mountains so that it could be used as a launch site for their airstrikes. His uncle refused. So the Houthis bombed his uncle’s home, then Mahyoub’s home. If they couldn’t have it, no one could. Mahyoub and his family survived the bombing and escaped to relatives nearby, but they weren’t safe. Because his uncle had stood up to the rebels, they had enemies. And although the rebels wanted revenge, they also wanted new recruits. They offered Mahyoub a choice: join them in exchange for his and his family’s safety, or die. Without hesitation, he refused their offer, instead participating in peaceful protests and persuading others in the city to reject the rebel group. The rebels threatened to kill him. With nowhere to hide, Mahyoub fled to the nearby country of Djibouti. CONTINUE READING