Birthdays under siege in Yemen: No candles, no presents

Yamanyoon- 24 Oct 2017

Mona al-Zoraigi stands, a forlorn figure in the dilapidated kitchen of her bombed-out apartment, consumed with guilt that she cannot provide her youngest child with the one thing he has been yearning for most.

“Zakaria won’t be celebrating his seventh birthday,” she says .

“We can’t afford to. The last time I even bought the children clothes was at Eid al-Fitr last year

“Food is more important to us.”

Al-Zoraigi has been the sole provider for her family of five since her husband, Saif, died prematurely while undergoing medical treatment for a manageable form of diabetes.

He was only 38 when his kidneys failed, and their local hospital in Taiz, Yemen’s second largest city, could not provide basic medical assistance to nurse him back to health.

“I’m all alone,” she says, choking back tears.

“We were happily married for 13 years. He was my life, my children’s protector. I feel lost after his death.”

For the past five years, the local community has tried to help whenever possible, but in the throes of war and amid a debilitating siege, resources in Taiz have been stretched wafer thin.

“Mona came to us around 18 months ago complaining she didn’t have an income and the means to provide for her family,” Maeen al-Shahari, a local official, says. “She now lives off the goodwill of others. It’s a miserable situation.”

Al-Zoraigi added: “When my kids see others eating sweets and playing with new things, they rush to me hoping I can give them the same. I can’t. I don’t know what to do.”

For almost three years, the Saudi aggression mercenaries have besieged Taiz, a city that has become one of the major front lines in the battle for control of Yemen, in order to push the people to fight Ansaroallah and the Yemeni army.

‘Everyone is a victim’

A Saudi-imposed land, naval and air blockade has caused food prices to soar and pushing millions to the brink of famine.

“Taiz has been devastated by the war, and everyone is a victim,” Ahmed Al-Washali , a local official , said. “Children and the elderly are the worst affected, suffering from depression and other terrible psychological disorders.”

The conflict has taken a severe toll on Yemeni youth, with the United Nationswarning that 80 percent of the country’s children are in desperate need of aid and two million are facing acute malnutrition.

“The life of a child growing up in Yemen is far from normal,” Rajat Madhok, a spokesman for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said.

“Two million children are out of school … With the ongoing crisis and dire humanitarian situation, prices of commodities have gone up, people have lost their jobs – I’ve met parents who’ve had to choose between getting one child treated in a hospital or whether to feed their other child. This is the most difficult decision a parent could ever have to make.”

Now, al-Zoraigi just prays that next year she can give Zakaria the birthday party he deserves, or at the least, a cake with some candles.