Explosive Objects and Destitution
September 28, 2022
Every time we hear about a child in a hospital as a result of UXO incidents, we realize how childhood and families in Yemen suffer due to the war and its economic effects.
The war bears the biggest responsibility for the suffering of many families and their fall into poverty. The nine-year-old boy “Nizar” is one of its victims. Despite his young age, Nizar endured the trouble of providing a livelihood for his displaced family. The mother was forced by the worsening debts and the absence of her adult breadwinner, whom the family does not know where he is now, to push her son (Nizar) to the street in order to collect and sell plastic cans and secure some basic needs for the family. The mother says,
“I wake him up early to go out after the dawn prayer so that no one would see him collecting plastic cans from the trash. We are a family that has always been closed to itself, no one would know about our financial situation, whether good or bad”. With these words, Bodour (32 years old), the mother of the child Nizar, began her talk.
According to the mother, the family’s debts increased, and they were no longer able to pay the rent of the house they were displaced to. The poor living situation prompted her to go to check on her house, which for four years had been located within a military area under the control of Ansar Allah group (Houthis), wishing to return to it in order to alleviate the accrued rent that she could not afford to pay. In addition, Nizar’s mother also deemed that going to check on her house would be an opportunity for her son to collect as many plastic cans from across that area as possible.
It was Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at 08:00 am, while her son “Nizar” was collecting plastic cans next to their house yard in Al-Jaabali neighborhood in Al-Hawk District of Hodeidah governorate, the mother was checking her house, which she left four years as a result of clashes took place in the area.
The child found a strange, greyish, pen-like object among other things left there. Out of curiosity, he reached out to pick up the object. To complete the satisfaction of his childish instinct of exploration, he hit it on the ground and it exploded, leaving an eloquent message about absurd war and its parties who lack the slightest sense of responsibility.
The flesh of the child’s right palm was scattered. The mother rushed out and carried her child to the hospital to save him. “I carried him to the hospital as if he was about to die,” she says. Because the family is destitute, the mother was not able to keep her child in the hospital after he had received first aid. She took him out of the hospital suffering from pain and inability to bear the costs of treatment. They were by themselves in this area, which has become a great calamity for its residents.
Explosives left by the parties to the conflict
Whoever leaves a home or land they love, they would leave it physically while their souls remain attached to it; so how about those who forcibly left it under the weight of war, and were prevented from visiting it, and they had nothing left of its homes and alleys but rubble and ruins.
This is the case of the child Nagib Mahfoudh, (16 years old), who left his home and village (Al Mandhar in Al-Hawk District of Hodeidah Governorate) in 2018, when the Giants Forces (UAE-backed joint forces) announced their entry to Hodeidah Governorate. He, his family, and all residents of his village left, fleeing with their lives, leaving everything behind. The passage of every second was increasing the risk of losing their lives.
The child has become responsible for his family in the place of displacement so that they can provide for a living and housing. He worked as a fisherman and lived in his aunt’s house in Al-Hawk neighborhood, Al Hawk District of Hodeidah Governorate.
He was always sad about his home and village, according to his aunt Zahraa (58 years old). He always remembered his home, as he had a strong desire to return to it. Najib seized the opportunity of the withdrawal of the Giants Forces from the village of Al Mandhar, in mid-November 2021, thinking that he could sneak into his village just to look at it.
It was known that his village had become uninhabitable, with no safety, not because of bullets and shells fired by the two parties to the war (Ansar Allah (Houthis) group and the Giants Forces), but because of what the two parties to the conflict have left behind in terms of killing tools ranging from mines, Booby-Traps and camouflaged explosive devices. He finished his work at the sea, sneaked out the eyes of Ansar Allah gunmen and entered his village. There were only rubbles and wreckage, as well as some odd metals lying on the ground. His curiosity and desire to make use of the metal prompted him to carry home two of those metals.
It was Tuesday, April 5, 2022, at 5:00 pm, when the child left his home in Al-Hawk neighborhood and went to a philanthropist who was distributing ice to the families displaced from Al Mandhar village. There, women, children, and some elderly people were crowding to get a piece of ice, so that they quench the thirst of fasting with cold water.
He sat waiting for his piece of ice, and in his hand was one of the metal objects he wanted to sell and benefit from its price. On his right and left were a number of displaced children queuing to get some ice. Because of displacement and destitution, many people are seen in queues in Hodeidah. This time, the queue was not for cooking gas or oil derivatives, for these people’s dreams are simpler. It was for pieces of ice.
He was moving these objects in his hands as a fun thing to help him pass the time until it was his turn to get a piece of ice. Suddenly, the metal object exploded, killing him and injuring eight others, including six children.
The Unexploded ordnance exploded and the hearts of Najib’s family were broken by his death. The flesh and blood of the victims were scattered in the place, while the pieces of ice did not come after that. The blazing fire of war that extended from Al Mandhar village to the alley of Al Hawk neighborhood melted all feelings of longing and turned them into sorrows.
