“We thought we would make a toy out of it, but it was a projectile and it exploded at us.” This is how the child “Jawad” seemed to recount to us his and his brother’s tragedy, with an exploding projectile of war remnants thrown under a tree. They thought they would make a fun game out of it, but he surprised them by detonating the hands of Jawad and seriously injuring Mohammad.
Jawad Munir, 14, lives in the Mashra`a Wahadnan district in Taiz governorate, where he tells "Khuyut", in a trembling voice, the details of the explosion by which he lost his hand, saying: "I was with my brother Mohammed, returning from school, and on our way, Mohammed found the bomb and took it, and after that, we reached the house and put the projectile in the yard of the house, commenting that they wanted to make a toy out of it, so he took a nail and hit it in the projectile which exploded at the moment, causing him to lose his hand, while the body of the 7-year-old Muhammad was filled with shrapnel throughout his body, the most dangerous of which the one hit his head.
Mohammed says, dragging his speech with difficulty and in words that the listener can hardly understand because of his young age: "We were longing to make a game for us because we don't have one, but it exploded and hit us, my whole body hurts."
Jawad and Muhammad, a simple model that reflects the suffering of most Yemeni children, who are considered the most affected group by the consequences and remnants of the war and the ongoing conflict in Yemen. International organizations are likely to leave a generation of Yemeni children "disfigured for life."
War Waste Causes Disabilities
The explosion occurred at noon on Tuesday, January 22, 2022, when their father was at his work down town while their mother was in the kitchen, she was terrified by the sound of the explosion shaking the house.
Mohammed and Jawad mother told "Khuyut", expressing her deep sadness over what happened to her two children: "I did not know that I had to alert my children of remnants of war or wired objects. I had never heard of similar explosions, nor did a projectile explode in the area where we live in."
A scene that may be the first in the area inhabited by Jawad and Mohammed, but it is repeated frequently in different areas in Yemen, where the explosive remnants of war kill large numbers of civilians of different ages and groups and inflict permanent disabilities and wounds on others.
Jawad mother says: "We stayed in the hospital for a week, and since we left and went home, the two children, Jawad and Muhammad, refuse to receive their friends who come to visit them or play with them." Noting that Jawad has been suffering from clear depression since his hand was amputated, by not talking to anyone.
These remnants include unexploded ordnance, which are ready to explode or otherwise prepared for use and have already been used in an armed conflict. These munitions may have been fired, thrown, or fallen and should have exploded, but they did not explode in time, including rockets, bombs and artillery shells.
Mr. Aref al-Maliki, director of the district office, told "Khuyut" that there are other cases of civilians killed or disabled in the same or adjacent areas. One of them was a girl who lost her hearing when a shell exploded near their house. Another 12-year-old boy was detonated by an unexploded projectile while he was playing in a nearby area, causing his flesh to explode at the time in 2015.”
In turn, the father of the two children, Jawad and Muhammad, Munir Sarhan, confirms that the district witnessed the beginning of the war on Yemen in 2015 with an armed conflict and bombing with missiles and projectiles. Two people from the area were killed as a result of one of the missiles, Abdo Ahmed and Faisal Abdu Saeed, he tells "Khuyut".
Media Insufficiency/shortage
There is a shortage in Media awareness of the dangers caused by the remnants of war although the international community adopted in 2003 a treaty to help reduce human suffering caused by explosive remnants of war and provide rapid assistance to affected communities. However, there is a clear shortcoming in the aspect of media awareness by the private and public media sector institutions.
Fahim al-Qadasi, a journalist specializing in the affairs of people with disabilities, says that the war has greatly increased the number of people with disabilities in Yemen and led to the creation of various disabilities, as the remnants of the war are responsible many of these disabilities.
Although there are no accurate statistics showing the number of people with disabilities due to the war, its remnants have greatly increased those numbers in the midst of a clear media failure in the adoption of this issue by media and authorities which are accountable to educate the public and publishing various preventive instructions that limit those injuries.
Fahim makes an exception for the "Deaf and Dumb Association", which recently conducted training and educational courses on how to deal with mines and explosives in a number of governorates for the deaf, due to the fact that most of these explosives are spread in many areas in Yemen, including rural areas.
However, the media coverage that could contribute to reducing the number of injured is still very poor and does not live up to the hoped-for level, says Al-Qadasi.
Expensive Risks
The war has caused various disabilities for children, the most serious of which is the mental and psychological disability suffered by millions of Yemeni children, especially those in areas of clashes and military confrontations, or in areas of contact between warring parties, which makes them exposed to the dangers of planting mines and air strikes or missiles.
Jawad mother says: "we stayed in the hospital for a week and since we left and went home, the two children, Jawad and Muhammad, refuse to receive their friends who come to visit them and play with them." She pointed out that Jawad has been suffering from clear depression since his hand was amputated by not talking to anyone.
Mental health experts and social workers believe that children in countries witnessing continuous wars and conflicts, especially those on the front lines, are affected by what is happening, and this is reflected on their mental health, so they suffer from psychological phobia and their educational attainment is low, which affects their future, and the future of the country at large.
In addition, the psychological disability posed by wars and conflicts in children extends its impact in the future in the absence of any attention paid to it by society and the responsible authorities.
In this context, a recent UN report revealed that the conflict in Yemen has killed and maimed about 2,600 children with the intensification of hostilities in the country during the past two years.
The report included details about how these children became victims of the indiscriminate use of mortars, artillery, military battles, ground combat, anti-personnel mines and other explosive remnants of war.
According to the report issued by UNICEF, more than 3,500 children in Yemen have suffered one or more grave violations; Among the most important of these measures were the denial of humanitarian access, the killing and maiming, the recruitment and use of children in the war.
Therefore, the exacerbation of this situation requires that all parties actively work towards a political solution to the conflict if they hope to save children from such suffering. Boys and girls are the future of Yemen and the parties to the war and the ongoing conflict must protect them from use and abuse and must view the children as a precious human asset.
