A Yemeni boy gets lost in a land prowled by US drones

Early that morning, Mohsanaa Salem woke her 14-year-old son to go buy vegetables. The sun had just risen above the mountain ridge, and winter light filled the ravine where their mud brick house sat at the foot of a slope. “Let me sleep,” Abdullah groaned from a mattress on the floor, surrounded by his brothers and sisters.

One word from his father, though, and the boy was up and dressed, trudging out of the house to the market in a neighboring village. Three hours later when he still hadn’t returned, Mohsanaa and her husband began to worry.

They were a family trying to get by in Yemen, a nation at war with itself that had become a battleground for more powerful countries seeking control of the Arabian Peninsula.

They knew that many families like theirs had been caught in the middle, with thousands killed in fighting between Iranian-backed rebels from the north, known as Houthis, and forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition trying to restore the ousted government.

They knew that al-Qaida militants were based in the mountains, sending fighters out to battle the Houthis, while trying to elude missiles fired from U.S. drones above that often killed innocents.

And they knew Abdullah was a good boy, though a bit naive. He never strayed far _ just to school or to play soccer with his friends in a lot so close his mother could see it from the house. At about 10 a.m., Mohsanaa and her husband called around to the couple dozen other families who lived in their village to ask if anybody had seen Abdullah.

No one had, and his parents’ worry grew to panic. 

All around al-Said district, in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province, people heard the American drone overhead on the morning of Jan. 26.

That wasn’t unusual. The sky often buzzed with drones hunting for the moment to strike at the al-Qaida militants, a mix of locals, foreign fighters and Yemenis from other parts of the country who had moved into the district.

From above, the drone surveyed an inhospitable landscape of barren limestone mountains, creased with ravines and gorges. Zooming in on those threads of green, the drone would have scanned dozens of isolated villages like the one where Abdullah lived, each just a few houses above their plots of land planted with wheat and fodder for their animals.

Abdullah’s village, Shaab Arshan, sits in a wadi just over 100 meters across in places, the bare mountains rearing up steeply on either side. Ravines and gorges lead to slightly larger valleys that eventually open into desert, the fringes of the vast Rub al-Khali that takes up much of the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Qaida fighters come down to the valleys to resupply and recruit in the markets. They pass out memory cards with their videos and lectures. They show up at weddings or funerals now and then, preaching to those in attendance. And they offer gifts to teens and young men, the most vulnerable and easily swayed to join their ranks.

For more than a decade, the United States has waged a drone war against al-Qaida in Yemen, trying to eliminate one of the most dangerous branches of the terror network. The Trump administration has dramatically ramped up drone strikes, carrying out more in two years than the Obama administration did over its entire eight years _ 176, compared to 154. More than 300 people were killed in 2017 and 2018 by one estimate.

Many civilians are among the victims: At least 30 killed in 2018, The Associated Press found, based on accounts from family members and witnesses. A few weeks before Abdullah’s disappearance, a drone’s missile slammed into a farm in a neighboring province, killing a 70-year-old man and a young relative who had just returned from mediating a land dispute.

But here in al-Said district, it had been months since the last strike.

Soon after he left the house, Abdullah ran into a schoolmate who told him al-Qaida militants were giving away motorcycles in the town of Mosaynaa. The friend had heard it from a neighbor who belonged to the group.

Abdullah had never thought of joining al-Qaida and he didn’t want to now. He was in the 8th grade and dreamed of becoming a doctor one day. But he knew how to drive, and he wanted a motorcycle.

The boys agreed they would go get the motor bikes and come right home.

They caught a ride to the market in Yashbom, where Abdullah used part of the money his mother had given him to pay for a taxi to Ataq, the provincial capital on the other side of the mountain.

Abdullah loved Ataq _ the closest thing to a city the village boy had seen. His father took him and his siblings there to buy gifts at holiday times and new clothes before the start of school. He always pleaded with his parents to send him to school there as a reward if he made it to the top of his class.

It was there that his friend had been told to contact the militants who would take them where they needed to go. They had no idea how far away that would be.

Abdullah’s parents expanded their search to nearby villages and called relatives in Ataq. No one had seen their boy.

What if a driver had hit Abdullah and sped away? He could be lying by the side of the road. Or, maybe someone found him and took him to a hospital.

Abdullah was their miracle child. Mohsanaa had complications in the pregnancy and gave birth to twins after only seven months. Abdullah’s brother died within days, and doctors were sure Abdullah would die, too. He was tiny, hairless, and there were no incubators at the hospital.

“If you saw him, you’d think he was a doll, just the size of the palm of your hand,” Mohsanaa said.

When Mohsanaa brought Abdullah home, she wouldn’t let anyone near him. She fed him formula. She kept him warm by spreading butter over his body and wrapping him in cotton. Every day, he got better, and by six months “he became a normal baby,” she said.

In an impoverished country where nearly four years of civil war have pushed millions to the brink of starvation, the family had much to be thankful for. Abdullah’s father, Saleh bin Elwiya, worked as a taxi driver and made enough to feed his wife, four sons and four daughters.