Sanaa · YE

Turkish Memorial

The Turkish Memorial in Sanaa — properly the Turkish Martyrs' Memorial Cemetery (Turkish: Yemen-Türk Şehitliği) — is a small plot of ground that quietly holds one of the most layered and contested chapters of Yemeni history: four centuries of Ottoman rule, ending with soldiers who died in the First World War. Set just outside the southern rampart of the old walled city, beside what was once an Ottoman army barracks and is now Yemen's Defence Ministry complex, it was renovated and re-opened in 2011 to honour the thousands of Ottoman troops who lost their lives in Yemen. For a long time the site's centrepiece was a striking monument more than ten metres tall, crowned in a pyramidal form, around whose walls the names of the fallen were set in copper plaques. It is also, more soberly, a place of divided memory: many Yemeni writers and intellectuals regarded a memorial to occupying soldiers in the capital's heart as provocative, and the monument was partially demolished by Houthi forces in March 2022. It is best understood today as a site of historical reflection rather than a polished tourist attraction.