Yemen’s national soccer team makes daring escape from war at home to play World Cup qualifier

CAIRO, Egypt — It’s rare to hear good news from Yemen these days. Two months into a Saudi-led bombing campaign, the situation is becoming increasingly bleak.

But there was a brief respite from the grim headlines today with a remarkable story about the country’s national soccer team, which crossed hell and high water to get to a World Cup qualifying match (hat-tip to Business Insider for breaking the story).

Photographs posted on the Facebook page of Rafat Ali Al-Akhali, the country’s youth and sports minister, show the team crowded onto a boat crossing the Bab el-Mandeb strait on a 13-hour journey from Aden to Djibouti.

That's the same route thousands of fleeing refugees have traveled in recent weeks. With the borders closed, and all airports either destroyed or engulfed in fighting, the only way out is by sea.

From Djibouti the team planned to travel north to Doha, Qatar, where they will meet their Czech coach to train for a World Cup qualifying match against North Korea on June 11.

Members of Yemen's national soccer team travel on a boat to Doha for a World Cup qualifier.

“These pictures capture the great spirit of the Yemeni people,” wrote Al-Akhali, “I do not know how to describe my mixed feelings about these images: Do you give in to grief at what has happened and frustration at the level of suffering imposed on our people? Or are you overwhelmed by the pride and determination of the youth and the union?"

The journey is a perilous one, not least because Saudi Arabia has imposed a blockade on Yemeni ports. Saudi Arabia began its bombing campaign, which is being supported by a coalition of Arab states and the United States, at the end of the March. The intervention came after Houthi rebels, a Yemeni Shia group, took control of the capital. Hundreds have died since the airstrikes began.

Even before the most recent fighting, Yemen wasn't seen as safe enough to host visiting soccer teams, and played all of its matches in other countries.

The team hasn't fared very well. In 2010 Yemen hosted the Gulf Cup of Nations and won not a single match. The country has never qualified for the World Cup, and is now ranked 165 out of 209 in the world by FIFA.

Nevertheless, Al-Akhali, the sports minister, remains optimistic about both Yemeni soccer and the future of the country. “I choose to hang on to hope that Yemen will rise from the rubble, and we will make our future by the clean hands of young people that are not stained with the blood of Yemenis.”