Osama Amin Ali Saeed Al-Bahzi, a 16-year-old boy, lived in a loving and congenial family, and grew up in a beautiful little house with three siblings,(two brothers, and a sister), all, with happiness and joy.
Osama is the fourth and youngest of his siblings. His mother is a housewife and his father is the secretary of the Ja’ar court. Despite his modest income, the father is happy and proud of himself and his family.
At one point, during the crisis’ years, the war intensified, and with it grew the demand for men to keep the war raging, but there were only children available.
Osama had completed 15, when the incitement for fighting and the call to battle were at the peak of their zeal. This made Osama an easy prey of some young recruits who went ahead of him to battle fronts, led by the commander of the security belt in Abyan governorate, Abd al-Latif al-Sayed.
Suddenly, Osama left his school, shocking both his father and mother, who had pinned their hopes on him to complete his education at any cost. But they were stunned by the child’s insistence on going to conscription. So, he went to what he wanted to do, despite the pleading of his parents.
That was, at 7 am of a Monday on November 6, 2017, when the child joined the 7th October camp as a guard.
After one year of service, the Saudi/ UAE led coalition required personnel to fight in Al-Hodeidah Governorate against Ansar Allah (Houthi) group. Consequently, a large number of young men and children were recruited for this task, including the child Osama.
Osama packed up his luggage and said goodbye to his family at 8 am on Wednesday, October 3, 2018, and headed to the unknown, amid the pleas of his mother and father, pleading with him not to leave.
He arrived at the camp of the 10th Brigade, Jabali, in Al-Hudaydah Governorate on the same day.
Approximately a month and a half later, he came back to visit his family in Abyan on the 8th of December 2018. He was trying to look cheerful, despite the obvious fatigue and exhaustion visible on him.. Behind his smile he was hiding immense distress.
He told his family about Al-Hudaydah Governorate and everything he witnessed, about the war, about the At Tuhayta District and his role in guarding the camp which he was stationed in. His father tried to persuade him to stay with them and complete his studies, but he refused.
After he spent a week with his family, he returned to Al-Hudaydah. Two weeks after he left them, that is, on Sunday, December 23, at 6 pm, the anguished father received a phone call. The caller was from Al-Hudaydah
“Are you Osama’s father?” the caller asked him. “Yes,” the father replied. The caller informed him that his son was injured, but he said that it was a minor injury. The father related later that he felt that the earth has narrowed on him at that moment.
The child was taken to the Mocha field hospital, while the father set off with one of his sons to Aden, thinking that his son would be taken there, because the caller after telling him of the news turned off his phone. The next day, the caller contacted the father again, at 11:00 am, and asked him to wait near the MSF hospital.
So, the father kept waiting until 4:00 pm, when the ambulance arrived. The child fighter was a lifeless corpse, blood-soaked all over his body. The innocent body was carried to the hospital emergency room. The child’s father, as well as his older brother, collapsed.
“May God boost his reward for you,” the officer escorting the child’s body said, “your son is a martyr”. Another ambulance carried the dead child’s body to Abyan. Another car, carried the father and a group of the dead child’s colleagues.
The body arrived at his hometown in Abyan at 07 pm. The news had reached the house ahead of the procession, so the mother greeted her son with screams and bitter wailing, then his classmates and friends came to take a last look at him.
Osama was killed along with his angelic childhood’s dreams, and left an immense grief in the hearts of his loved ones and his family, who did not, and will not, forget him ever.
