A groom holds a rifle during his wedding in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Photos: dpa
When Malik Sufian got married in his mountain village of Al-Daiaa in Yemen, he piled on traditional hospitality – food and music for 300 guests, bright lights, singing, drumming.
With one notable exception: There were no streams of celebratory gunfire filling the sky with live rounds that sometimes bring about horrific consequences when they land.
“I am proud because there were no shots or casualties at my wedding,” says Malik, looking back fondly at the recent event.
People like to brandish arms at weddings in Yemen, where bursts into the air are the highest expression of joy.
The country at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula suffered decades of civil war, making firearms readily available. Regulation around the weapons is lax.
Traditionally too, weapons are trusty companions in the mountains and deserts, from the ancient scimitar to the matchlock to the modern assault rifle.
But the ritual firing can be deadly. In Yemen, like elsewhere in the Gulf region, weddings and other celebrations have ended in tragedy.
Guests dance with weapons at a wedding in Sanaa, capital of Yemen.
In 2021, five people died in Yemen’s capital Sanaa when the youth football team won against Saudi Arabia and jubilant fans hosed rounds into the air. Another 120 people were injured, according to the Huthi rebel-dominated Interior Ministry.
Amir Dakum wants to finally do away with the practice. Anyone who shoots at weddings is a “potential murderer”, Dakum says, calling this “disastrous and dangerous”.
Together with like-minded people, he started an anti-firing initiative in southern Yemen’s Taiz province, which can mean boycotting weddings in the extended circles of Dakum and his supporters: “If shots are fired after we arrive, the groom must decide.”
Either the shooter has to leave the celebration, or Dakum’s group members will. The response, he says, has been very positive.
Celebratory fire also occurs in the Balkans or in South Asia. Conflicts in the Middle East turned Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya in particular into giant depots of arms, writes the think tank Global Initiative.
In relatively safe countries like Jordan, anyone with money can freely buy weapons at bazaars. In 2020, a man died on the day of his release from a Jordanian prison – the fatal celebratory shot was fired by his cousin.
It can take up to two minutes for a bullet shot vertically into the air to hit the ground again. The bullet slows down considerably due to air resistance, but still has enough force to kill, as military tests in the United States have proven.
Forbes magazine reports that bullets fired at an angle at which it can still accelerate are particularly dangerous. And smaller and denser bullets are also more dangerous than lighter, larger projectiles.
In Lebanon, the practice got so common at weddings, births, funerals or on New Year’s Eve that indiscriminate shooting has been a criminal offence since 2016, incurring penalties of up to 10 years’ hard labour.
Nevertheless, deaths occur time and again: In 2017 alone, 41 people lost their lives in such incidents, according to police figures. In 2022, a bullet even hit an aeroplane.
The latest reported case occurred in the Beirut suburb of Hadath on Aug 6, when a seven-year-old Lebanese girl was seriously injured and went in a coma after a stray bullet struck her in the head while she was having lunch in her school’s playground.
Reacting to the incident, Mayor of Hadath George Aoun, branded celebratory shooters “dehumanised killers”.
In Iraq, the phenomenon increased after the US invasion in 2003. In the chaos of the invasion, government buildings and shops were looted and weapons fell into the hands of civilians across the country.
Nonethless, Amir Dakum hopes to expand his initiative in Yemen. “We are already in contact with influential people in neighbouring villages,” he says.
Perhaps the slogan “Our weddings are safe” will then be known throughout Taiz province and beyond, he hopes. “With that, our weddings would no longer be fronts and sources of danger. On the contrary, they will be a pure joy.” – dpa/Johannes Sadek and Amal Al-Yarisi
