Scots family torn apart by civil war in Yemen begs UK government to reunite them

She and her children have British passports but strict immigration rules mean her husband, who has a Yemeni passport, has been unable to visit her and their children.

A bombing campaign by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition has resulted in 5,000 civilian deaths, a quarter of them children, and left nearly 9,000 injured, according to the United Nations.

The conflict began in 2015 when Saudi Arabia-backed forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed with the Houthi movement, which controls the capital Sana’a.

Alakil, 51, said: “When it began we were woken up at 2am to bombs dropping. The whole house was shaking. It was absolutely terrifying. We thought the world would be in an uproar about innocent people being bombed but of course that didn’t happen and it went on and on.”

With no end to the conflict in sight she and her 55-year-old husband made the agonising decision to split up their family. They decided that she and their two young daughters should flee to Scotland to live with her brother in Cupar until the bombing stopped. Two of the couple’s older sons stayed with their father, who has a Yemeni passport. Their other two sons were already settled in Scotland before the conflict began.

Louise said: “We were scared for our lives. We were living down in the basement. We had no electricity, no gas, no water.

“When we left we were so naïve and thought it would be over in a few months and quite casually said goodbye. I think that’s what makes it harder now. I wish we had said a lot more to each other.”

Alkali met her future husband in Edinburgh when he was a student at Napier and they married in 1988, eventually settling in Yemen.

She said: “When I met him he had a Scottish accent. Abdulwahab had been in Scotland for eight years. It wasn’t a marriage of convenience. We fell in love.”

Alkali, now living in Cupar in Fife with daughters Mariam, 14, and Ayisha, 12, desperately wants to reunite the family but government red tape has stopped her husband from visiting Scotland to see his wife and youngest children.

Louise explained: “When my husband applied to the UK Government for a visitor visa they turned him down. The problem is our assets are tied up in land and in the beautiful house we built ourselves, as well as flats my father-in-law left my husband. "

She would like to get a spousal visa for her husband when the war ends but she is not earning over the Government-set minimum threshold of £18,600 per year.

She said: “I married young and went to Yemen and ran a nursery school. Most of my experience is working in these schools for many years. When I came back here and applied for jobs, of course they don’t recognise what I did there because you need to have certificates.

“I’ve now taken a job as a cleaner at my daughter’s school. I’m prepared to do anything so that we’re not dependent on the Government. But I would need to be working about five cleaning jobs, 24 hours a day, to earn £18,600 a year. And we can’t sell our assets in Yemen because they’re almost worthless unless this war ends.”

Being apart from her husband and sons for two years has taken its toll on Louise and their daughters.

Louise said: “I can see them suffering badly. They were so close to their father. It’s just something that children don’t understand. They just want to see their dad. They’re at that very important age when they need their dad."

Stephen Gethins, the family's local MP who has been assisting them, said: “Refusing to let this family be reunited and bring a father home to see his daughters needs to be reassessed as a matter of urgency.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “Applicants for visit visas must be able to demonstrate how they will support themselves during their visit to the UK and that they meet the requirements of immigration rules. Where there is insufficient evidence provided, applications will be refused.”