As MPs prepare to debate the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the tragic suffering of some of the conflict’s youngest victims has come to the fore.
Two years since the civil war began, at least 1,546 children have been killed and 2,450 maimed.
Nine-year-old Ali wears two hearing aids and barely speaks after an airstrike hit a building near his home in Sa’ada Governorate. The blast threw him from a window and he fell two stories, before landing on his neck.
“Blood was coming out of Ali’s ears and nose,” his mother Enas said. “Blood was even coming out from his mouth… it was hard for him to even breathe.”
She added: “We took shelter in a small ground room that was made from mud. It was the most horrible night of our lives. Ali was injured and we couldn’t take him to the hospital – there were the sounds of the flying jets and missiles falling one after the other very close to our home.”
Khalil and his sister Noor, aged nine and six, were peppered with shrapnel when an airstrike hit their home on New Year’s Day. The attack killed their grandfather, three-year-old cousin and three guests.
Khalil has since stopped going to school and Noor is too afraid to leave the house.
“I was playing in the yard with my brother, and then we heard the missile coming towards us,” Noor said, adding that she was “so scared,” she kept her eyes closed.
“My wounds still hurt and I am very afraid when I hear aircraft overhead,” she said. “I have nightmares at night – I see aircraft hitting our house again and again. My brother and I cannot sleep properly. Sometimes I wake up because I hear my brother Khalil shouting while he is asleep.”
Leading charities believe all parties involved in the conflict, which has displaced more than three million people, are guilty of violating international law, with reports of homes, schools, and hospitals being targeted.
