In a dramatic wartime scene, the Yemeni scholar Nadia Al-Sakkaf managed to escape from Sana’a in disguise, with the help of the United Nations, in April 2015. That was a few months after she had served as Yemen’s minister of information, and the first woman to hold a prominent government post in the country.
Al-Sakkaf told Al-Fanar Media that she was forced to leave her country surreptitiously on a United Nations employee plane because the Houthi movement, which had seized control of the capital, Sana’a, considered her an “enemy” and a “target for assassination.”
Even after she left the country, she was surprised by the death sentence issued against her and other officials of the ousted government, in 2020, by a Houthi-controlled court.
Al-Sakkaf is currently the director of research at the Arabia Brain Trust, a Yemeni-led think tank based in London. Al-Fanar Media presents her story as part of a series of articles to commemorate World Refugee Day, which was observed on June 20.