Yemeni female activist attempts suicide for falling victim to e-blackmail

Republican Yemen

A Yemeni female activist has attempted to commit suicide after she fell victim to e-blackmail in Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city.

Sara Alwan is a well-known activist who volunteers to help young orphans and IDPs in Taiz. She attempted to commit suicide using a gun after she gave in to pressure caused by threats made by a man to publish her private pictures and videos.

Alwan wrote a post on her Facebook Page, hours before shooting herself on Wednesday, that she had lost hope in the authorities to do her justice and decided to leave “this awful world”.

“I apologize to those who love me,” she wrote. ”I am sorry from the bottom of my heart. Don’t let others talk about how I was weak. Please talk about how this awful world was beyond my strength. I did my best to remain strong but I failed.”

Alwan was moved to Al Thawra Hospital and underwent surgery to extract the bullet that luckily missed her heart.

Alwan said her neighbor managed to steal her flash drive, with the help of his aunt, and threatened to publish her private pictures and videos online if she did not give in to his demands.

According to a relative of Alwan’s, she had been subject to blackmail for about 8 months. She complained to the security authorities in Taiz but they failed to do anything about it, for there is no law that considers e-blackmail a punishable offense.

News about Alwan attempting to commit suicide went viral on social media and turned into a public opinion that resulted in the capture of the blackmailer.