The Last Bread Purchase in Sana’a

NYN | Reports and Analyses

Last night was anything but ordinary. At first, it carried nothing but the smell of fresh bread. Ibrahim left his home in the Sha’oub district of Sana’a, clutching the money his mother had given him.
He bid her farewell with a smile, hopeful they would meet again in just a few minutes, and headed toward the popular Furwah market, where he always bought bread from the same small bakery everyone knew.
He did not know that those simple steps would be the last of his life, that the dreams he entertained to pass the short walk would be consumed by fire, and that his reunion with his mother would be delayed indefinitely.
After reaching the bakery, an American missile shook the skies of the market—and the skies of Sana’a. A few moments of deadly silence followed, and then the market turned into an inferno of fire, dust, and blood.
The bakery burned, and with it, the dream. Ibrahim was martyred, as was the bakery owner. All that remained of them were bloodstains soaking the stones of the marketplace.
The screams of people filled the air, everyone running, searching desperately for their loved ones under the rubble. Among the cries, one voice pierced the walls of sound and conscience—a woman and a small boy, clutching a bloodied piece of cloth, perhaps belonging to his father or brother, whispering through choked tears:
“O Lord, let it be a dream… O Lord, let it be a dream.”
The woman echoed his words loudly: “O Lord, let it be a dream, O Lord, let it be a dream.”
But it was no dream. It was the brutal reality of American savagery.
That cry was not just one of pain, but the very summary of a nation living under bombardment, where children are buried before their dreams.
A cry from Sana’a, heard by Gaza across the distance—as if a single road of pain connects them, traveled silently by the souls of martyrs, carrying one message: we are the victims of American arrogance, the victims of the Pharaoh of this age.
Ibrahim’s story is not the end—it is the beginning of a nation’s story, a nation struggling to remain alive despite all efforts to erase it.
Yes, Ibrahim was martyred, the baker was martyred, and dozens of civilians too, and the market will remain a witness to the American crime.
The woman’s scream and the child’s choking sob will haunt those who fix their headdress in front of the mirror and prepare for nights of revelry among dancers and imported liquor, and haunt all those who sleep under warm roofs and sip their morning coffee while scrolling through their phones to justify the killing and exonerate the criminal, while the children of Sana’a and Gaza drag their shrouds with their tiny hands.
Ibrahim will not buy bread again, but the curses of silence and justification will haunt you as long as the earth endures.