Yemen Had the World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis. Then Covid Came
Masks and social distancing are scarce in the port city of Aden, where many see Covid-19 as less of a threat than cholera or typhoid.
A street in Sanaa, Yemen, on Feb. 5.
Photographer: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
The first person I encountered after landing at Aden airport offered some words of reassurance. “Here in Yemen, you’re perfectly safe from corona,” the official said, eyeing the two masks firmly pinched around my nose and the bottle of sanitizer in my hand. “There’s no corona here.”
It was a claim I would hear repeatedly over a three-day visit to the strategic port city of about 1 million, a trip back to life when faces were exposed and social distancing was an alien concept. There were few masks visible on crowded buses and minivans, at a restaurant serving a buffet dinner, or in a packed outdoor market selling qat, the mildly narcotic leaf locals like to chew.