Displaced Escaping War to Encounter Hell
10 November 2022
Abyan Governorate witnesses extremely horrible humanitarian conditions especially with the spread of weapons and armed men as well as extremist armed groups accompanied by the absence of the role of the local authority and the insecurity phenomena. Such phenomena include shooting incidents that resulted in casualties affected by the direct and random indiscriminate shooting as well as the frequent incidents of military vehicles that run over civilians.
Mohammed Shawqi (13yr) is one of the victims of the live bullet in Zinjibar city. Mohammed’s family is one of the displaced families who moved to Abyan from Tabishah village in Jabal Sabir near Taiz city. In 2017, Mohammed and his family were displaced from their village after a large part of their house was destroyed due to mortar shelling launched by Ansar Allah armed group (the Houthis). The displaced family consists of seven people including the father, the mother, and five children, four males and one female. The eldest son is Ahmed (15yr), and the youngest is Rabie (1yr and a half) was born in displacement. The victim Mohammed (13yr) is the second child.
Mohammed’ father, Shawqi (44yr) who works as a tiler says: “I fled my house in Taiz governorate because of the war. We were living in fear and terror. I displaced to Abyan governorate for my family be safe, dreaming of settling down with my children.”
He added: “I settled in Al-Emarat neighborhood in Zinjibar and started searching for work. I took my children to school, but after a while, I couldn’t afford to pay for their education, the rent, the cost of living, and electricity and water bills. The financial situation got worse due to the price hike.
Ahmed and Mohammed both dropped out of school and started working. Ahmed was in the 7th Grade and his brother Mohammed was in the 5th Grade when they dropped out of school. Ahmed worked with his father and Mohammed found a job in a furniture store in Zinjibar market receiving 1500 YR a day (less than one dollar). Things started to somehow stabilize for the family. However, the unstable security situation made their search for a stable life almost impossible.
As the head of the household puts it: “We would hear the sounds of gunfire to the extent that the city has become more hell than the place we were displaced from. Despite this, Mohammed carried on working in the furniture store. Since he was the only child working in the store, his co-workers would often send him to buy food for them from the nearby restaurant.
On Monday 8 August 2022, Mohammed left the house to work. At 7:00 pm, he was sent to bring dinner to his co-workers. As he was talking to the waiter in the restaurant to take his order, Mohammed was shot with a bullet in his right leg. The bullet penetrated Mohammed’s leg and hit the wall. The bullet’s fragments scattered on his left leg and the instep of his right leg.
The bullet was fired from the weapon of a member of the security belt forces in Zinjibar city. This soldier had an argument with one of his peers inside the restaurant and shot two bullets toward the ground nearby the restaurant’s customers to intimidate his peer. One of the two bullets hit the child Mohammed whilst the other bullet didn’t cause any harm to anyone.
This incident caused panic among the customers who started to push each other to run away from the restaurant fearing for their life. Mohammed fell to the ground and his blood was all over the place. He was terrified and was then taken to Zinjibar Hospital (1km away from the restaurant). However, he could not be treated there, so he was transferred to Al-Razi Public Hospital and received first aid there.
The injured child was then transferred to MSF Hospital in Aden and then to Al-Jamhouri Hospital. However, there was no specialist physician to check and treat him. So, he was transferred yet again to German Aden Hospital. The victim underwent an operation to extract the shrapnel. The victim’s family lost a lot of money treating their child despite the fact that the owner of the furniture store covered part of the costs of treatment.
At the time of writing this blog, the child is still suffering from swelling in his leg and can only walk using a crutch. He is bedridden for the most part and has become dependent on his family who fled the war only to be trapped in it yet again.
In another context, running over civilians by military vehicles has become a frequent phenomenon in Abyan since 2015 due to the spread of military vehicles in the governorate. These military vehicles fail to respect the fact that there are civilians who shop and walk around in the narrow markets and streets of Abyan. The Security Belt Forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, which has taken control of the governorate, are blamed for many incidents.
The family of the child Saber (14yr) was displaced from Mahl Al-Shaikh village, Zabid district, Al-Hodeidah governorate in 2016 due to the war that reached their area. The child’s family consists of 12 members, his father and his mother, five of his male brothers, and four females. The family settled in Al-Tumaisi camp, one of Zinjiba’s camps.
The family members got separated in the camp because of their large number. Six months later, they moved to live in a simple house in Al Mihraq Al Kabir neighborhood, Jiar area, Khanfar district so that they can be reunited. However, little did they know they were about to embark upon a journey of misery that included having to pay rent as well as the constant search for food. The family was forced to stop their children from going to school and asked to go to work with their father in collecting scrap metal from the streets.
Like the rest of his brothers, Saber dropped out of school and started to work when he was in the 4th Grade. His father Ali Nasser (42yr) says:
“We are living in a difficult humanitarian condition since we fled Al-Hodeida governorate due to the war, and we are here living in a situation worse than the war. My children are working in many occupations. They are collecting scrap metal or empty water bottles or working in different jobs for daily wages in order to survive.”
On Monday morning 6 June 2022, Saber’s father went to work as usual and left behind his children in the house. At 11:30 am, the father received a call from one of his friends who informed him that his child had an accident and that he is now at Al-Razi General Hospital in Abyan. The father left everything and rushed to see his child. When he arrived at the hospital, he found his child in the emergency department covered in his blood. The father says; “My eyes filled with tears and, my heart was broken for my child. After a medical checkup, we found out that he had bruises on the back and pelvis and a large wound in the front of the head and he was bleeding and there were scratches all over his body.”
Due to the severity of his injury, he was transferred to Al-Jamhouri Hospital in Aden in an ambulance and was accompanied by two soldiers of the Belt Forces, who are accused of running over him. We only received 15 thousand YR for treatment. The two soldiers then left us at the hospital without covering any other expenses.
The child Saber was run over by a white military vehicle belonging to the security belt when he was riding his motorbike on the Ring Road. Yehya Abdullah (30yr- a witness) says:
“There were 6 soldiers, 2 of them were in the front and four were in the back. All of them were in military clothes and were carrying weapons, and they are affiliated with the security belt.”
He adds: “The vehicle was going very fast. They were not paying attention to the road and were talking to each other, so they ran over the displaced child Saber. Despite the difficult financial situation of the family, the perpetrators did not cover the costs of his treatment.”
After he was treated in Al-Jamhouri Hospital, the father took his son back home despite the fact that he still needs medical care. The child also suffers psychological trauma so he became isolated and frightened given the family’s difficult conditions, who are helpless and victimized.
