Child victims of the €7bn weapons deal
worst outbreak since records began. Like many people who have witnessed the horrific violence first hand, bewildered little Halima finds it hard to speak about the bomb or her dead friends.
Abishimo Hamed, 40, understands her pain. A native Somali, she fled her home country 20 years ago to escape the civil war and build a new life in Yemen, working as a cleaner to support her three teenage children.
Now war has again turned her life upside down – and driven her back to Somalia. Her decision was made when a pregnant friend was travelling on a bus with her five children when it was targeted by war planes. “They thought the bus was carrying bombs,” she said. “My friend and her children were killed with everyone else. There were body parts everywhere. Some were really badly burned.”
Nine days later, Abishimo and her children fled back to Somalia with the help of a man who hid them among livestock in a boat crossing the Gulf.
The family now lives in a refugee camp hut in Garowe, in the Puntland region of the country.
A few shacks along we find Muzamal Ibrahim, 26. He was caught in another bus attack in 2016. He lost his left arm. He said: “I lost so much launched a sustained bombing campaign with support from the UK, the USA and France. But three years on, both sides are entrenched, and UN peace deal attempts have failed. blood I almost died.” In Yemen, he washed cars for a living, but in Somalia he has been reduced to begging for food. Last year, his wife gave birth to triplets. All three died from malnutrition. Muzamal says: “In Yemen, before the war, we had food and the children could go to school. Here, we have nothing.”
Fellow refugee Zaynab Omar, 25, fled Yemen shortly after the war broke out, worried for her children. Yet the drought and food shortages in Somalia have torn her life apart. Eight months ago, her daughters Yasmin, two, and Aisha, one, died from malnutrition and cholera two days apart. She says: “I’ve since had twins and I think one of them is malnourished. The doctors have told me to take her to hospital, but I don’t have the money. Maybe if the war in Yemen hadn’t happened Yamsin and Aisha would still be here.” Fadumo Ahmed also left Yemen because she feared for the life of her son Bashir. She had a good life before the war, working in a beauty salon in a town called Mukala while her husband worked for a petrol company. Now, she begs local shopkeepers for food to keep her family alive. Abishimo had to flee back to Somalia