War-torn Yemen harvests coffee

SANAA, Yemen - In a verdant highland village in the Haraaz area, about 100 kilometers west of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, farmers have begun to harvest their coffee crop, amid the tough challenges of a raging civil war.

"We mainly rely on the rainy season to irrigate coffee plants since the war broke out more than four years ago. It cut electricity and triggered a severe fuel shortage," farmer Mohsen Al-Hamassi said at his coffee farm in al-Hutib village, east of Haraaz.

"Fuel prices on the black market have tripled, making it difficult for many farmers to run their own irrigation pumps, and the solar energy to run the water pumps is very expensive," he said, adding that only some can afford to install solar systems.