I moved to Yemen in December 2014. Within a few months, a war broke out and engulfed the Middle East’s poorest country. It brought with it death, disease, hunger and unimaginable human suffering. Soon the country came to a complete standstill. Many of those who could escape, ran for their lives. Many of those who couldn’t, died on the streets or in their homes.
Bombing, shelling, snipers and street-to-street fighting were the order of the day. Decomposed bodies were found by sanitation workers under heaps of garbage. Long queues of desperate and often angry residents formed in front of a handful of functional flour shops that rationed their sales.
Electricity was cut and taps ran dry. Schools shut down, garbage was strewn everywhere and sewage started flowing onto the streets. A perfect recipe for a public health crisis, one would say.
And that is exactly what happened. People started falling sick but there was nowhere to go. Hospitals closed down and medical supplies soon dried up.
Humanitarian Crisis in War-Torn Yemen
Two-and-a-half years on, and over 50 percent of hospitals and health facilities across the country are still non-functional. Many doctors have fled while others have died in hospitals that were attacked. Those who continue to treat the sick in hospitals haven’t been paid their salaries for over ten months.
Beyond the immediate death and destruction of the war, there is the long-term effect on Yemen’s population as social services crumble all around them. In a country with the population of Punjab, hunger and disease are killing more Yemenis than the fighting itself.
Some even scrounge or scavenge for food from leftovers thrown on the streets or from garbage bins.
Nearly two million children are malnourished. Of them, 385,000 are severely and acutely malnourished. In other words, these severely malnourished children are 11 times more at risk of death than a healthy child their age.
Cholera has spread. The UN says it is the worst in recent history. Over 620,000 people have been reported sick with acute watery diarrhoea in the last four months alone. The statistics are shocking – an average of over 4,500 cases a day. Over 2,000 associated deaths have been confirmed so far. In a country where the health system has collapsed, these numbers take on a new dimension.
There is a shortage of medicines. Basic medical supplies like gloves and masks are running out fast and their replenishment is slow.
I saw a doctor treat a suspected cholera patient with his bare hands. He had no choice. “Either I save lives or I go and find gloves, which are anyway not available,” he said.
Helplessness of Doctors
I met a doctor at Al-Thawra in Sana’a, a leading specialty hospital in the country and one of the few that still functions. She took me around the hospital and what I saw was horrifying and appalling. Seriously sick children lying in the corridors of the unsanitised wards, two at times three premature babies stacked together in one incubator. Locked pharmacies and desperate mothers begging for money to buy medicines for their dying children.
I feel like I am contributing to their death. I have had to refuse admitting pregnant women with complications simply because I do not have any staff to help me take care of them.A doctor at Al-Thawra in Sana’a
She points at the empty maternity ward, “I have seen women give birth on the street outside the hospital or in cars.”
In another hospital in Dhamar, a city close to the capital Sana’a, I noticed a parent arguing with the doctor. He wanted his child discharged from hospital. She was very young, frail and very sick. The journey back home to their village would have in all probability killed her. But the father was left with no choice. Keeping her in the hospital meant incurring medical expenses that he could ill afford. He had six other children to feed and the cost of medicines for this child was eating into their food.
He made the most difficult choice a parent can make. He chose his other children over his little daughter.
The stories are many, but the audience is a handful. Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and is also the world’s most neglected and forgotten crisis. An Indian journalist friend called me and wanted to interview me on Yemen. I was surprised at the little knowledge he had on the country. He mistook Yemen for Syria!
Beyond Celebrating the Survival Stories
Occasionally Yemen features in the news. The miraculous survival of baby Buthaina when her entire family died in the rubble after an airstrike destroyed her home, or the skeleton body of baby Salem whose bones pushed against his skin every time he inhaled, or the sunken eyes of 18 year old Saida whose head seemed to precariously hang on the rest of her severely malnourished body generated short term global interest.
But these are stories that are few and far between. In most cases, news from Yemen doesn’t tickle the interest of editors or make it to the television sets in the more privileged parts of the world. The parts that can influence change and bring peace in this war savaged country.
The United Nations has launched one of its biggest operations here. Agencies such as UNICEF are working around the clock to provide succor to millions in need. But this is drop in the ocean. Yemen urgently needs help and support from the global community. Yemen can also benefit from countries like India which has a long-standing commitment to supporting nations in need.
Reaching Out to Yemenis
Back in 2015, India staged a successful evacuation of its citizens and of those from over 20 different nationalities from Yemen when the fighting escalated. There were thousands of Indians settled in Yemen before the war. Indian doctors and nurses filled hospitals across the country and because of their contributions, till date Indians are held in high esteem in Yemen. Bollywood is our best ambassador. Movies, actors and songs are popular in these parts. Aden especially enjoys a strong connection with India from the times of the Raj. Paan and chutney are available here as are paranthas and chai adani or Indian milk tea.
Now India must come back again. This time to evacuate sick and injured Yemenis, with charity flights for those in need of urgent medical attention.
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India Can Play a Proactive Role
Unlike other warzones where people can escape and take refuge in neighbouring countries, the civilian population in Yemen is trapped. The Sana’a airport in the North has been closed for most of the conflict. Even those who can afford treatment abroad are stuck in the country.
Only two airports are functioning in part and both are in the South. Many from the north, which hosts the bulk on the population, cannot make the journey to the south for reasons of security.
The Indian government can play a proactive role and make use of its excellent medical facilities to provide urgent medical attention to the sick and injured. Especially children whose lives hang by a string. Children who have lost their limbs, have burnt skin and hanging parts, or who need surgery and artificial limbs.
These children who are the future of Yemen will forever be indebted to India for its support and kindness in their hour of need. And India would live up to its core commitments to children. Especially those who have been left out to hang in one of recent history’s bloodiest of wars.
(Rajat Madhok is the Chief, Communication and Advocacy for UNICEF, Yemen. He has been in the country for over two and half years. Before this, Rajat served with UNICEF in Afghanistan and at the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia. He can be reached @RajatMadhok . This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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