Living on a mountaintop

Living on a mountaintop

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In villages perched high on a mountain in western Yemen, residents are a safe distance from a conflict raging through most of the country, but they endure a hardscrabble existence little changed from hundreds of years ago.

Long used to a livelihood without electricity or running water, they have felt little impact from the 18 months of civil war which have cut those essential services to many of Yemen's 28 million people.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad
A woman uses a stone grinder to make flour in her house.

Dinner is still cooked as usual on an open fire, and dawn light heralds the start of work in the fields.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

But far from a country idyll, the sunny days in the crisp green hills are a medieval struggle for survival.

People in the Jafariya district of the western Raymah province haul basic goods uphill by foot, donkeyback and even a pulley-powered cable car soaring between peaks.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Majid Abdullah al-Ayashi, 14, regularly plies this misty 1,200-metre span in the rusty metal box along with produce and other basic goods which he then carries further uphill to his village on the Dhalamlam mountain.

"It really hurts my back. I wish there was another solution to move the goods because the elevator isn't safe and could lead to a fall," the child lamented.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Agriculture remains the mainstay of most villagers and the area is known for beekeeping and its distinctive honey is sold around the country.

Mohammad Yahya Haidar, 65, takes the sweet with the bitter.

"Despite the difficulty of life, we're still living here, just as our fathers and our ancestors did. We grow coffee and grain like they did, and we've grown accustomed to this life with all its cruelty and extreme hardship."

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Most of Yemen's population lives in the countryside, a disparate patchwork of deserts, mountains and scrubland where even in peacetime the writ of the government and the benefit of its services barely runs.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

That isolation has girded countryfolk well for the trials of rural life, and even the architecture is purpose-built for adversity.

Traditional cisterns cut into the rock capture rainwater and many of the stone buildings in the area have withstood the elements for hundreds of years.

. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

If calamity strikes, however, the villages' distance from deadly combat can become a curse when residents need medical attention in faraway clinics.

Pregnant women suffering complications and immobile patients are lucky to survive the eight-hour carried on men's shoulders in makeshift stretchers.

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Slideshow

A man rides a cable car.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A man rides a cable car.

A cable car operator uses a vehicle engine to run the cable car.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A cable car operator uses a vehicle engine to run the cable car.

A boy carries a gas canister on a road to Dhalamlam Mountain.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A boy carries a gas canister on a road to Dhalamlam Mountain.

A boy sits on the roof of a house.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A boy sits on the roof of a house.

Boys sit on an edge of the roof of their house.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Boys sit on an edge of the roof of their house.

A girl plays on a swing.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A girl plays on a swing.

A man prays at a mosque on Dhalamlam Mountain.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A man prays at a mosque on Dhalamlam Mountain.

An ancient handwritten copy of the holy Koran is seen in a house.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

An ancient handwritten copy of the holy Koran is seen in a house.

A teacher explains a subject to pupils in a school.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A teacher explains a subject to pupils in a school.

A woman walks along a path.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

A woman walks along a path.

Children stand in a tub where their mothers wash clothes.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Children stand in a tub where their mothers wash clothes.

Men work in a farm.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Men work in a farm.

People shop at a market.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

People shop at a market.

Houses are seen in the mountains.
. Jafariya, Yemen. Reuters/Abduljabbar Zeyad

Houses are seen in the mountains.