The social politics of weddings in Yemen

Yemen has unique and violent traditions that give a special character to its weddings, which are costly and lavish, especially considering the country’s low per capita income. The weddings involve traditional clothing, knives and guns, which sometime kill people — as happened in Ibb province in September, when a tribal sheikh was killed by celebratory gunfire. That incident resulted in the signing of a popular document criminalizing shooting at weddings. Yemeni law already banned that practice, but the law was not being enforced.

A year earlier, a Yemeni Airways civilian aircraft carrying 150 passengers was hit by a stray bullet fired by wedding revelers as it was about to land near Sanaa International Airport.