Sunday, April 18, 2021
Mohsin Fadhle
The farmer, Khalil Musaad Saleh Al Dhaheri (28 years), spent 5 months, as displaced, away from his home in Al-Haqb village in Damt District of Al-Dhalea Governorate.
On Monday morning, November 5, 2018, Khalil left his village, with his family, escaping the hell of war that suddenly took place in his village, following the rapid progress made by the forces of the internationally recognized government and UAE-backed Security Belt towards the city of Damt, with the aim of controlling the city, which is under the control of Ansar Allah (Houthis).
The government forces managed to take control of Al-Haqb village during the morning hours on Monday, November 5, 2018, from which they retreated in the evening of that day. So, the Houthis regained control of the village after a few hours, and turned a number of its homes into weapons stores and barricades for their snipers, after those houses became uninhabited.
Al-Haqb village remained a front line for the Houthis in confronting the other party. On Thursday, March 28, 2019, the Houthis carried out a large military operation, and were able to regain all the areas they had lost five months before that time.
The progress of the Houthis in the outskirts of Murais district had again a big impact on the displaced people of Al-Haqb village, who believed that the war had ended at that point, and returned to their village in successive groups, while the war effects on the village still reflected in its details the atrocity of war on all aspects of life.
The residents felt the value of happiness when they returned home. However, fear still inhabits their hearts; fear of the latent remnants of war that threaten them in the alleys, roads and valleys surrounding the village.
At that day, the farmer “Khalil Al Dhahiri” did not feel that he had actually returned…, he used to see his deserted agricultural fields right in front of him, unable to plow or cultivate them, despite the passage of more than a year since his return, due to unconfirmed suspicions that those fields on the west of the village may have been laid out with mines and explosives.
On Sunday, August 9, 2020, when it was 2:00 pm, Khalil went out driving his tractor, heading to his deserted field, on the west of the village, to plow it.
When Khalil began plowing the field, he was soon exposed to the detonation of an anti-armor mine left over by the Houthis. The explosion resulted in massive destruction of the agricultural tractor, while Khalil was seriously injured in his left leg.
Khalil was taken to a hospital in the capital, Sana’a, where doctors decided to amputate his left leg from above the knee. After he had spent more than a month in the hospital for treatment, he returned home with two wooden crutches on which he leans whenever he wants to walk in slow steps.
The mines planted by the Ansar Allah group (the Houthis) since the outbreak of the conflict have continued to claim the lives of Yemenis and their limbs, and have become a state of daily panic and terror for civilians in rural areas more. They are planted in residential areas, public roads, main streets, homes, and farms.
