'Am I going to make this or not?' — One American's escape from Yemen
“The situation was not as bad as it is right now,” he says of Yemen, which is now consumed by fighting and airstrikes. "There was unrest, but there were not any aerial bombardments. There were not any wars going on like there are right now.”
That all changed in March. A Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s now ousted president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, launched strikes on the Houthi rebels who had taken over the capital and much of Aden, Yemen's second city.
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“This is a very vivid moment,” he says. It was about 2:30 a.m. when he heard loud explosions. “I went outside and I remember seeing — it looked like laser beams being shot in the sky. It was anti-aircraft machine guns firing at night. It felt like Armageddon. I didn’t know if I was going to see the morning.”
He planned to leave immediately, but bombs had destroyed landing strips. Commercial flights stopped. The US evacuated its embassy, but there was no offer at the time to assist US citizens.
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“I left my aunt, she has five children. They are all US citizens," he says. "I have cousins there. Even now, I’m happy that I’m here, but there are a lot of people who need to be here more than I do. Even now, I get so many messages from Yemeni Americans and British nationals, people trying to escape, and asking me how I did it, and I can’t recommend them my route. It’s not safe enough for them to do what I did.”
But Alkhanshali says that one of his cousins told him to do one thing: "Don’t worry. Just tell your story and let people know that we are still here, stuck here."
http://wlrn.org/post/am-i-going-make-or-not-one-americans-escape-yemen