YEMEN HAS BECOME THE WORLD’S WORST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS – WE MUST ACT NOW
The four-year civil war has now left tens of thousands dead and millions on the brink of starvation, while orphaned children wander the streets.
Anna Silverman reports IN THE STREETS of Hodeidah in Yemen, children not much older than toddlers walk around with babies balanced on their hips, their parents either murdered or incapacitated by disease. They offer to clean cars in exchange for food or money. At night, they find an alley to curl up in, alongside dead bodies.
This apocalyptic scene is the everyday reality in Yemen, where a civil war has devastated the country for nearly four years. Last week, the warring factions agreed a ceasefire for Hodeidah – the port city that is a lifeline for two-thirds of the country – and the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said he hoped this would be the starting point to the end of the war. But it is already too late for many of those caught up in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis ever. Tens of thousands have been killed and 14 million have been pushed to the brink of starvation. Over 22 million people desperately need our help.
Many are being killed by air strikes as a Saudi-led coalition fights Houthi opposition. Millions more suffer as the attacks cut off access to food, medicine and clean water. Over a million people have suffered from the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, and the country is on the brink of the worst famine in 100 years.
Rose Ochielg, 45, a nurse with the International Committee Red Cross, has been in Yemen for 18 months. She’s seen the situation worsen by the day. ‘I’ve seen a rise in outbreaks of diseases and malnourished babies,’ she says. One mother tried to bring her five-year-old son to her clinic in Dhale but couldn’t make the journey for days. The boy had malaria and was severely malnourished. Eventually, someone gave them a lift on a motorbike. ‘He died the moment he was carried in,’ Rose adds. ‘Other children have passed away as soon as their parents get them here. I’m a mother
and I can’t bear hearing the mothers cry, “Why, why, what did we do to deserve this?”’
In October, the dire situation was summed up by a shocking picture of an emaciated girl on the front page of The New York Times. The newspaper said the images ‘may be as unsettling as anything we have used before’, but they wanted to print them as ‘this is our job as journalists… to give voice to those who are otherwise abandoned, victimised and forgotten’. The photo of seven-year-old Amal Hussain lying motionless on a hospital bed brought the human cost of the catastrophe into focus. Tragically, she died a few days later – and, while her picture triggered an impassioned response, it didn’t deliver change.
Beilqes Alzawm, 34, is from Yemen and was lucky to get out when she did. She and her son moved to London in 2014, when Beilqes got a job as a human rights policy adviser and advocacy. A few months after she left, war broke out. Most of her family are still there. She feels enormous pain and guilt listening to their suffering. ‘I speak to my sister on the phone and ask, “What can I do? Let me send money.” She says, “Why send money? Where will we buy food? There are no shops any more. We need food and medicine urgently to survive.”’
Beilqes’ family’s four-storey house was destroyed after armed groups seized it and used it as a hideout. Everybody has lost their jobs and food and water are almost impossible to come by. ‘My sister tells me people are walking around screaming with hysteria. Her teenage daughter wakes up screaming in the night and the children wet themselves. My family is hardly surviving.’
The children who are not begging are draped in guns as armed forces recruit child soldiers. Meanwhile, Beilqes feels isolated here. ‘I can’t tell my family I am sitting safely in my garden or choosing a meal in the supermarket when they are walking for two days to find oil to cook with, and they are starving.’
Virtually the entire country has been affected by the conflict and humanitarian aid is vital. Red Cross are on the ground now providing people with food, clean water and access to healthcare.
Lorraine Marulanda of the British Red Cross says, ‘ Yemen is the world’s single largest humanitarian crisis. But let us be clear, humanitarian solutions are no longer enough to save Yemen. In the long-term, Yemen needs sustainable political solutions to end this conflict and tragic suffering.’
Rose has been trying to provide as many pregnant women as she can with sterile home-birthing kits. ‘I look at a child and I don’t know what to say to them any more,’ she says. ‘ They’ve been through so much. I asked one eight-year-old boy if he would like a toy. He told me he wants a gun so he can protect his mother.’
Meanwhile, Beilqes watches the news and doesn’t recognise the country she grew up in. ‘I used to walk the peaceful streets safely without my head covered.’ She studied political science at university and came from a family that valued women’s education. Now, her family has been forced to become more regressive. Her uncle has stopped his daughters from going to school. ‘ Watching my people suffer is unbearable. I long to be with them again one day,’ she says.
You can support the work of the British Red Cross in Yemen by donating to the appeal: redcross.org.uk/yemencrisis
£10 could provide a hygiene parcel
£20 could provide a family of five with a 60kg bag of rice
£30 could provide 12 families with cans so they can collect clean, safe water