by Murad Abdo

ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- On a sweltering night in Aden, when the power was cut yet again, I stepped outside and sat beneath a shattered streetlamp. Around me, the city seemed swallowed by darkness and silence, broken only by the ragged drone of private generators coughing out light for the few who could afford it.

I wonder how much longer we must endure a life like this. My beloved Aden, though no longer pummeled by war, is quietly fading into the margins of the world -- a forgotten city whose agony no longer makes the headlines.

I can still remember the joy and hope in July 2015, when Houthi fighters were driven out of the city with the backing of Saudi and Emirati forces. Families streamed home, markets flickered to life, and children filled the streets with laughter. For a fleeting moment, peace felt within reach, and so did the prospect of rebuilding.

Some imagined Aden rising again as a regional hub, perhaps even another Dubai. It wasn't far-fetched: Aden harbor was once among the world's busiest, a vital gateway where ships refueled and traded on their passage between continents. There was even talk of making it Yemen's new political capital.

Yet these dreams were shattered one by one. Foreign embassies and Arab missions never settled here, many choosing instead to base themselves in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh. They descend on Aden only for hurried hours of diplomacy before flying straight back. Bullet-scarred public and residential buildings still stand, bearing silent witness to the slow pace of reconstruction. Aden carries the title of Yemen's temporary capital like an empty crown, a name without substance.

Yemen itself is fractured. The Houthis have entrenched themselves in the north and west, while the south clings to a fragile power-sharing government reliant on Saudi, Emirati, and Western support.

For those of us in Aden, that divide is not abstract -- it's the checkpoints we face every time we venture north. There, militants from different factions stop cars, rifles slung loosely as they demand ID cards, scanning names and hometowns to decide who may pass and who must turn back. Sometimes, they detain you. Fear has replaced freedom as the rule of travel.

Just as we are barred from going north, friends from Sanaa and other northern provinces also fear crossing south. They tell me they are just as afraid, as the same suspicion greets them at every checkpoint.

In Aden, people tell me it is no longer missiles or gunfire that kill them, but the daily grind of darkness, thirst, hunger and broken services. Power cuts last 15 to 20 hours a day, leaving families to sweat through the heat. Water runs from taps only a few days a week. Garbage piles up in corners, stinking in the sun. People joke bitterly that the suffering has only changed its uniform after the war is over.

"We are being consumed slowly," one resident said, "as if life itself were punishing us for staying alive."

The human cost is everywhere. In the market, shopkeepers complain that sales fall while prices rise. "People come to look, but they don't buy," one grocer told me. "They barely afford bread and rice."

In another shop, I overheard a painful exchange. A grocer asked his customer, "When will you pay your debt?" The man answered without hesitation: "When the government pays my salary." In Aden, that is no joke -- salaries go unpaid for months, and when they finally arrive, they can scarcely cover the cost of food and medicine.

One recent morning, I passed by a school near my neighborhood in Aden. Inside a stifling classroom, dozens of children sat crowded together on the bare floor, their books in plastic sachets because their families could not afford proper school supplies. The ceiling fans hung motionless -- there was no electricity.

At the front, a teacher in sweat-soaked clothes kept writing on the board. He told me he hadn't been paid in months, yet he still came every day. "If we close the school doors, the streets will take them," he said, glancing at the children. "And the streets today mean gangs or guns."

In my residential neighborhood, I recently met the 15-year-old son of my neighbor. He once studied beside my younger brother. Now he wears a uniform and carries a rifle. "There's no point in studying," he told me. "My father is sick and retired with no salary. I had to help my family. They need food and medicine, not certificates."

His words left my heart heavier. Aden may no longer hear the roar of fighter jets or the thunder of shells as in Sanaa and other northern provinces under Houthi control. But the silence we live in -- the absence of governance, services and even hope -- is its own kind of war.

At night, I sometimes meet an elderly man in our alley. He told me that during the long rule of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, at least salaries were paid on time and lights came on at dusk. "Now we have peace without services," he said. "What kind of peace is that?"

Later that evening, as we spoke in the darkness, my neighbor lit a small candle, its dim flame casting long shadows on the walls.

"We have endured worse," he said softly. "Someday, the lights will stay on -- and perhaps our children will sleep without fear, and this struggle to live without the basic services and essentials will finally be over."

From across the alley, another neighbor who had been listening interjected, his voice calm but heavy with exhaustion.

"Hope has become a luxury," he said. "Those who can leave, do so. Nothing will change while our country remains divided by those who fight for power. We are merely the victims of their struggle." ■