With little food left, Yemenis sell and eat expired goods
Scarce supplies, little quality control and no money a disaster
ADEN // Early one morning, nine- year- old Ahmed Al Zikri collapsed at home with stomach pains and vomiting. His mother gave him milk to settle his stomach but it only made him worse. When hours passed with no improvement in Ahmed’s condition, his father, Ali, borrowed a neighbour’s car and took his son to hospital in Al Maafer, 50 kilometres from their home in Al Zakera, Taez province.
“At the hospital, the doctor told me that my son had food poisoning, and then I realised that it was because of the expired food- stuffs that I buy for my children,” said Mr Al Zikri. The doctor confirmed Mr Al Zikri’s suspicions.
After two years of war in Yemen, food has become scarce and expensive.
Food items that have passed their expiry date cost less and with little or no quality control, they are openly on sale in shops.
Impoverished families sometimes have no alternative but to consume food that may be unsafe because it is a couple of months past its use-by date.
As a low- paid labourer in the construction industry, money is tight at the best of times for Mr Al Zikri and his family of six children.
The war has stopped construction, so there is no work for him and the family is dependent on charity for food.
But when that is not enough, Mr Al Zikri resorts to buying food which is past its use-by date.
“I cannot buy fresh milk or juice for my children but when they beg me for them, I buy milk, juice, biscuits and other things which have expired because they cost less than a quarter of the usual price,” he said.
“I’ve been buying expired food for a year and my children never suffered any illness. Until now.”
Mr Al Zikri said shopkeepers had always told him it was safe to eat food that was two months out of date.
“But I will not buy out-of-date food any more because I’ve seen the effect on my son.”
Ahmed had to stay in hospital for seven days, and Mr Al Zikri had to sell his wife’s jewellery to pay for his treatment.
It cost far more than the food he had bought as treats for his children.
Lying in a hospital bed close by was four-year-old Ameer Aqlan. He too had food poisoning.
“It’s his older sister’s fault,” said Ameer’s mother, Iqbal, who never leaves his side.
“She got him juice and biscuits, which were past the expiry date. We’ve been here three days.”
The director of paediatrics at the Motherhood and Childhood Hospital, Ibtesam Taha, confirmed that the number of chil- dren who suffer from food poisoning has greatly increased in the past year because more people are eating unsafe food.
“We used to receive about 20 cases a year,” she said.
“In the past year, we have had more than 60 children come into the hospital with food poisoning. Other children have died at home because they live too far away or couldn’t get to hospital in time,” she said.
The markets in Taez are full of expired foodstuffs.
One trader in Al Nashama, a village close to the hospital, said he and other merchants sold out-ofdate goods because there was no one to stop them.
“Before the war, markets were inspected and we couldn’t sell expired goods,” he said.
“But now, we sell them openly for reasonable prices and there is a huge demand.”