In the shadow of war and neglect, Yemen’s Akhdam community remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, marginalisation, and denial of aid

For decades, a minority community in Yemen has lived on the margins of society, excluded from public life and denied access to housing, employment, and basic services.

This exclusion has drawn renewed attention through recent investigations into the Akhdam, an Arabic-speaking, predominantly Muslim group widely regarded as 'untouchable' and locally referred to as the 'marginalised'.

Estimates of their population range from 500,000 to 3.5 million nationwide, with many living in informal settlements on the outskirts of cities or in isolated rural areas across the governorates of Hodeidah, Taiz, Ibb, Lahij, Al Mahwit, Hajjah, and Hadhramaut.

Their marginalisation extends beyond social stigma to structural neglect. The Akhdam have long faced deep-seated prejudice and neglect from state institutions, driven by myths linking them to the soldiers of Abraha, the sixth-century Abyssinian ruler of Yemen who attempted to destroy the Kaʿba, a history that has left generations of Akhdam excluded and denied the opportunities available to other Yemenis.

Consequently, many Akhdam families live in precarious, inadequate shelters often made of cardboard, rags, or loosely assembled wood, frequently lacking electricity, running water, or other basic services. 

Their vulnerability has been further exposed by Yemen’s ongoing conflict. Waves of displacement have disproportionately affected the marginalised, yet rights groups often do not classify them as displaced because marginalisation has been a lifelong condition for most.

As a result, many have been excluded from humanitarian aid, according to a marginalised activist in Marib, cited in the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies’ report Amplifying the Voices of the Marginalised, published in September 2021.

Living on the margins

In an effort to illustrate the persistent marginalisation of the Akhdam, The New Arab spoke with residents living in Yemen’s displacement camps.

In Al-Zahra camp, in the Al-Shamayateen district southwest of Taiz, Rawda Ahmed al-Ra’i, in her 30s, struggled to repair her tattered tent while pointing to other shelters for displaced families from the marginalised community, all standing helpless amid floodwaters that had destroyed their belongings. 

Her observations highlighted a stark contrast with other displaced families in the same area. Those from tribal backgrounds live in rented homes and receive regular assistance from the local branch of the Executive Unit for the Management of Displacement Camps.

According to Wissam al-Mashraqi, director of the unit in al-Shamayateen, these families were provided with financial support to rent homes from early 2021 until the end of 2023. He explained that the payments were necessary to remove them from schools where they had been sheltering.

What stands out, however, is the disparity in aid. While the area is home to around 25,000 displaced families from tribal backgrounds, only 903 displaced families from the marginalised community live across 11 camps — yet financial support continues to be prioritised for displaced tribal families, leaving the marginalised community largely without assistance.

‘Discrimination without limits’

For Rawda, the difference in treatment is impossible to ignore.

“This is discrimination without limits,” she said, highlighting that she and her neighbours, displaced from the Al-Kadha area southwest of Taiz in 2018 due to the war that began in March 2015, have since lived in shelters made of unsecured wooden containers.

“When the wind blows, the house falls apart,” she said. “Not to mention how cramped it is. It cannot accommodate a family of between five and nine people.”

Nearby, other displaced marginalised families face similar conditions.

Among them is Wazira Ali Salam, also in her 30s, who fled Al-Dhalea in southern Yemen to Taiz with her five children at the start of the war in March 2015.

“All I found in the government-controlled city was an unfinished building,” she told The New Arab. “There, I live with about 10 other displaced and marginalised people, without bedding or blankets to shield us from the winter cold.”

She added that they cannot return to Al-Dhalea due to intermittent fighting between forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which controls all seven southern governorates, and the Houthis, and that her family also suffers from hunger, reflecting the broader hardships faced by marginalised people seeking temporary refuge in the city.

A pattern rooted in history

The experiences of Rawda and Salam are not isolated cases.

According to a Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies report issued on 10 June 2019, the marginalised have been Yemen’s most vulnerable group to the effects of the war because of their low social status.

The report said the community has “faced centuries of discrimination, exploitation and poverty”, resulting in humanitarian aid reaching marginalised communities being far less than that received by other groups.

This long history of exclusion has limited access to education, health care, housing, and decent work, with the Sana’a Center’s report, noting that most live in slums on the outskirts of cities, often without basic services.

That being said, only 9% register their children at birth, making the lack of birth certificates a major barrier to school enrolment.

Activists have weighed in to explain that the roots of discrimination lie in social attitudes reinforced by myths and prejudice, including differences in skin colour and ethnicity, as well as a social legacy that views the marginalised as outsiders.

“This is evident, for example, in the double standards applied by the Executive Unit for the Management of Displacement Camps, local authorities, and officials, who have abdicated their responsibility to improve conditions and ensure equality,” said Fawzi Mahyoub, head of the Better Life Association for Coexistence and Development. 

Saleh Abduh Saleh, head of the Higher Coordination Committee for the Marginalised in Taiz governorate, placed primary responsibility on the government.

He called for the allocation of state-owned land and its distribution to displaced marginalised families to end decades of persistent suffering.

Saleh also said that discrimination is fuelled by widespread myths, which portray the marginalised as descendants of the soldiers of Abraha the Abyssinian.

“Because of this, both society and the government treat them with contempt,” Fawzi added, noting that they are also denied housing and the right to own land.

Rights denied despite the law

There is no doubt that these attitudes violate Yemen’s constitution.

For example, Article 26 of the constitution states that "the state guarantees citizens the right to adequate and secure housing and works to provide appropriate conditions to achieve this," while Article 28 states that "the state protects private property and guarantees the right to dispose of it in accordance with the law."

Yet in practice, even when marginalised people own land, they are often prevented from building on it by neighbours or authorities.

This happened to Saleh himself. He described his struggle with local authorities in government-controlled Taiz when he attempted to build a home on land he bought in the Al-Ba'arara area west of the city.

Despite holding ownership documents, copies of which The New Arab reviewed, he was prevented from building last year. “I filed a complaint with the local authority in Al-Muzaffar district to seek justice,” he said. “They urged me to sell the land to avoid losing it entirely amid the city’s security chaos.”

Displacement beyond Taiz

Beyond the constitution, the wider consequences of this widespread exclusion must also be addressed.

“Unfortunately, even society has a discriminatory culture against us,” Saleh said. “They do not want us to live among them. In short, they reject our integration in all fields.”

As a result, marginalised families often erect tents on vacant land or on privately owned plots where owners allow them to stay temporarily, according to Adel Faraj Mabrouk, head of the education and youth sector at the National Union for the Development of the Poorest Groups.

However, these arrangements are unstable, as landowners often require families to leave when they decide to sell the property.

In early 2025, discrimination took a more forceful turn in Aden. Marginalised residents were expelled and their homes demolished in the Al-Arsal neighbourhood in the Al-Mamdarah area of Al-Sheikh Othman district, despite living there since 1992.

According to residents, including 50-year-old Shawqi al-Hakimi, the demolitions represent a sharp departure from previous practices.

“Previous authorities neither expelled the marginalised nor demolished their homes,” he told The New Arab. “Today, the demolition was carried out by the Public Works and Roads Office in Al-Sheikh Othman district.”

“It’s true we don’t have legal deeds for the land where we built our modest homes,” he added, “but we have lived here for 30 years.”

Demolitions and complaints

Following the forced expulsions, The New Arab obtained the official notices delivered to residents, demanding the removal of their informal homes within 24 hours.

Residents said they woke to an armed security force that threw household belongings into the street and demolished 20 shelters, including the home of 40-year-old Sina’a Ahmed.

Aden’s director general of public works, Walid al-Sarari, said the removals were carried out under Public Works and Roads Ministry Decision No. 23 of 1994 on building and planning violations.

He added that the homes were outside the master plan, built on roadways, or located in cemeteries under the Ministry of Endowments.

“Some of the marginalised families live in Al-Radwan cemetery, while others are forced to live on the streets,” he told The New Arab, adding that removals are typically carried out by district-level authorities.

Following the demolitions, six families filed complaints with the Presidential Leadership Council, the Aden governor and the provincial security committee, describing what happened as “racial discrimination.”

They cited the lack of graduated official warnings, the absence of opportunities to rectify their situation, and the failure to provide alternative housing or compensation.

Empty talk

According to Shawqi, the campaign stopped after the complaints were submitted, a development that Ali Sarhan, director of the Human Rights Ministry office in Taiz, described as a positive step.

“The marginalised are among Yemen’s poorest groups, and housing is their primary concern,” he said, calling on the government to integrate them into society.

But for Rawda and Wazira, such statements offer little reassurance.

They said they have heard similar promises many times without action and asked, “If an official promises and does not act, then who will?”

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition, translated by Afrah Almatwari; to read the original, click here.