The Foreign Service Journal, March 2003

Evacuation from San’aa, Yemen This is a brief account of my son William’s memories of being evacu- ated from Yemen during the civil war there in 1994. He was 9 then and is 17 now. Boom! AtttAtttTaaaAAttttt. Those were the noises that I woke up to one May morning in 1994. Yay! Fireworks! I was just 9 years old and I had slept over at a friend’s house. We had just started to eat breakfast when the “fire- works” began, and we were excit- ed. We were still dancing around when my friend’s dad walked in, and said, “those aren’t fireworks, it’s war.” And that was the begin- ning of the short-lived Yemeni Civil War for me. My friend began crying, but his older sister and I ran around some more. The circumstances did not worry us because at the time we were still too young to realize the potential danger involved. However, our parents did. The war, even though not imme- diately life-threatening, created a lot of tension and difficulties. The M A R C H 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 The embassy evacuation plan suggested we “use the bar from a bar lock safe to protect ourselves or hide under a desk or behind a cabinet and hope not to be detected.” SHORT TERM FURNISHED APARTMENTS AVAILABLE columbia plaza apartments Capital Living With Comfort and Convenience Beautiful, Spacious Efficiencies, 1 and 2 Bedrooms Utilities Included Complimentary Voice Mail Courtyard Style Plaza Polished Hardwood Floors Private Balconies Huge Walk-In Closets 24 Hour Front Desk Garage Parking Available Shopping on Site Cardkey Entry/Access River Views Minutes to Fine Dining Walk to the Kennedy Center and Georgetown (202) 293-2000 2400 Virginia Ave., N.W. Managed by Polinger, Shannon & Luchs Co. Interested in: • Careers • Internships • Involvement in International Relations? www.colead.org Info., contacts, phone and fax nos., and links to: U.S. foreign affairs agencies Congress Foreign affairs schools Int’l organizations Advocacy for World affairs NGO’s The Coalition for American Leadership Abroad 2101 E. St. NW, Washington, DC 20037 Tel. (202) 944-5519 • e-mail: colead@afsa.org