Houthis take there island back - Bab el-Mandeb
By Saghir Hussain ยท
We have lived by these waters all our lives. The strait is our road, our market, our horizon. Mayun sits in the middle like a dark rock the sea never quite swallowed. Most days it is empty of families. A few fishermen pass close, some soldiers come and go, goats pick at the scrub. Then the boats arrived again and the old flag came down.For years outsiders used our coast and our island as if they belonged to someone else. Checkpoints, bases, planes overhead. We watched tankers slide through the two channels and wondered when the next explosion would come. When the fighters landed and said the land was Yemeni again, some of us felt a tight, tired pride. This rock, this narrow sea, is ours. Our fathers fished here before the war ate everything.Yet pride does not fill the nets. The guns are closer now. The air smells of diesel and fear. Children no longer play near the shore after dark. We hear talk of more planes, more ships, more revenge. Fishermen stay in port. Prices rise. The strait that fed us may now starve us.We do not choose the sides that fight over our water. We only want to sleep without counting distant flashes, to mend nets in the morning, to watch the current run the same way it always has. The island is back in Yemeni hands. Whether that brings peace or another long night, no one here can say. We wait, as we have waited for years, and hope the sea remembers us before the next storm.