I sat down in the tent among a handful of tribesmen. Yemenis were still recovering from shock and horror at what happened, as was I, a young reporter who was covering the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen for The New York Times. It was the largest massacre of protesters at the Sanaa demonstration, and the day would change the course of Yemen’s history, but we didn’t know that yet on March 19. Two men had had been killed in that tent the day prior, March 18, 2011, which would become known as Jumaat al-Karama, or the Friday of Dignity, after pro-government snipers rained gunfire on Change Square following Friday prayers, killing at least 45 people and wounding some 200 others. Maybe I had seen the two bullet holes on its outside flap, or I was beckoned to enter by one of the tribesmen sitting under the tent’s green tarp, but I recall clearly what one of the protesters inside told me that day.
I cannot remember why I walked into this particular tent rather than one of the hundreds of others. Ten years ago, on March 19, 2011, I walked into a tent in the antigovernment protest encampment in Sanaa, Yemen, known as Change Square.
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