Confidence-building Measures between the Two Parties to the Conflict in Yemen (Water Mediation)

Sheba Youth Foundation started early with a women-led local mediation campaign to return the water corporation’s tanks controlled by military forces and citizens to the administration of the corporation, to enable it to re-provide its services to citizens.

On August 4 was the first field visit to see the issue of the woman who controlled the tanks of the Local Water Corporation located in Al-Mujalia area, where Ms. Ola Al-Abri, director of Sheba Youth Foundation, the implementing foundation of the Water Sector Initiative – Taiz, met with the Sabri woman whom the security forces and the administration of the Water Corporation was unable to take and her family out of the headquarters of the corporation’s tanks.

During the meeting, it was agreed with the woman in control of the tank to find alternative housing for her in return for handing over the corporation’s tanks, which was the first success of the mediation campaign led by Sheba Youth Foundation.

On August 3, the mediation committee formed by the Water Sector Initiative Project, led by the activist Maeen Al-Obaidi and the project coordinator Shorouk Al-Refaie had their second field visit, where the activist Rashad Al-Sami’i, Lieutenant-Colonel Osama Al-Sharabi, Director of the Security Media Department at the Governorate Police, and Mr. Fouad Al-Faqih, Deputy Director of the Office of Social Affairs also participated in the mediation committee, while the director of the Local Water Corporation and the directors of Salh and Al-Mudhaffar districts participated in the visit.

The mediation committee met with the military leaders whose forces are located in the headquarters of the Local Water Corporation’s tanks in the areas of Thaabat, Political Security Office, and Al-Manakh, and agreed with them to hand over the tanks to the LWSC to enable it to re-provide its services to citizens after the Corporation committed to submitting a memorandum to the governor to provide security protection for these tanks.

On September 4, the local mediation committee led by Sheba Youth Foundation, with the support of Yemen Partners International, succeeded in returning all the tanks of the Water Corporation in Taiz City, to the administration of the Water Corporation.

The handing over was attended by the members of the mediation committee headed by Ms. Ola Al-Aghbari, the military leaders who were stationed at the tanks headquarters, the two deputy directors of the  LWSC for Technical Affairs, Eng. Abdo Ali and for administrative and financial affairs Eng. Sultan Jamil, the director of Al-Mudhaffar District, Mr. Ahmed Ali Jamel, and the assistant director of the Governorate Police, Colonel Adnan Al-Saqqaf.

During the visit, the committee signed the minutes of handing over the tanks to the administration of the LWSC with the security leaders, the director of Al-Mudhaffar District and the two deputy directors of LWSC.