Doctor Who Tried To Tell World About Yemen's War Pays Heavy Price

"If today they take Abdul Kader and we're quiet, tomorrow they may take me or someone else."


Abdul Kader al-Guneid managed to post one last tweet before he was dragged barefoot from his home in Yemen by plainclothes gunmen last week.

"Houthi militiamen are at my house," the 66-year-old doctor and human rights activist wrote on Wednesday afternoon. Then, his Twitter feed fell silent. His wife saw him being taken away by men she said she recognized as among the Houthi rebels controlling their hometown of Taiz. His family has not seen or heard from him since.

Al-Guneid's disappearance sent shivers through the small community of Yemeni activists trying to keep the outside world informed about the conflict raging in their country. "What happened to Abdul Kader freaked us all out," political analyst Hisham al-Omeisy told The WorldPost. "It sets a precedent that they take people who are just active on Twitter."



Al-Guneid is both a vocal critic of the Houthis and a tireless chronicler of the war. The day he was abducted began with his usual stream of Twitter posts. "Awaken by two blasts, that shook my house," he wrote that morning, referring to airstrikes from a Saudi-led campaign trying to oust the rebels and their allies. Like many others in Yemen, al-Guneid had stopped leaving his house unless absolutely necessary, his family said.

Many Yemenis live in fear of the relentless airstrikes and ground clashes that have claimed over 4,000 lives already. Severe fuel shortages make it nearly impossible to get around in any case. And al-Guneid had a particular cause for concern: the threatening phone calls and Facebook messages he had been receiving in recent months. So he was sitting at home, posting information about airstrikes, casualties and protests in his area, when the gunmen broke through his back door and took him away last week, according to his family.

"He was one of very few information sources in Taiz who wrote in Arabic and provided the English translation, which drew the attention of Western journalists and others," his 30-year-old daughter Nagwan al-Guneid, a graduate student living in Canada, told The WorldPost. "He believed in giving Taiz a voice through social media and international media outlets," she said.

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