Shukri Hussein
24 July 2019•Update: 24 July 2019
ADEN, Yemen
Every morning, Hadil Mahmoud, a 13-year-old Yemeni girl, used to practice her favorite hobby of climbing trees near her home in the central Taiz province.
One day, a random shell struck nearby as the Yemeni child was moving up a tree in her hometown of Al-Arari in the war-ravaged province.
“A shell fired by Houthi rebels hit as I was climbing a tree near my house,” Hadil told Anadolu Agency.
The Yemeni child was rushed to a hospital in the southern city of Aden for medical treatment.
"When I saw my hands wrapped with bandages, I never thought that they were amputated and that I won't be able to write or draw again," the shocked girl said, with tears rolling down her checks.
“I could not believe that I will not have hands anymore.”
A UN report said that more than 7,500 children have been killed or wounded in Yemen since 2014.
"The suffering of children in Yemen has worsened during the reporting period, becoming simply appalling," Virginia Gamba, the UN special representative for children in conflict, said last month.
"The civilian population, especially children, are kept hostage of a conflict they didn't choose to be in."
Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.
The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains.
According to UN figures, Yemen is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than 10 million people driven to the brink of famine. More than 22 million people in Yemen are desperate for humanitarian aid and protection.
Endless suffering
Taha Mohamed says an organization has offered to have an artificial limbs transplant for his niece in Switzerland.
The plan was to transfer Hadil and two other children to Egypt and then to Geneva.
"As soon as we arrived in Cairo … surprisingly the organization asked to hold a press conference," he said.
He lamented that the press conference was purely meant to promote the organization and “show off its activities at our cost”.
The family refused to participate in the press conference and the organization retaliated with forbidding them of daily allowance of 50 EGP (some $3).
"We had difficult days,” he recalled. “Without the help of locals, we would have ended up homeless.”
Taha said that their biggest wish was to return to Yemen.
"We went to our embassy in Cairo and managed after four months to get back our passports," he said.
He noted that during this period, a businessman in Taiz promised to sponsor the transplant operation of prosthetic hands for Hadil in Cairo.
“However, doctors told the family that it would be very difficult to transplant electronic prosthetic hands,” the uncle said.
“We had no other option but to accept installing normal prosthetic hands,” he said.
Despite her suffering, the Yemeni girl still dreams of becoming a TV presenter in the future.
