Abandoned By The World, Here's How Yemen War Victims Are Getting A New Lease Of Life In India

You will be forgiven if you have no idea about the ongoing deadly civil war in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. Poor international media coverage has left the horrific conflict severely underreported. There's no oil in Yemen, which could have made the so-called first world countries interested in it.

Since 2015, the conflict has claimed over 70,000 lives so far.

AFP

Today, the country is almost torn into five pieces, each controlled by an armed faction which claims they are the legitimate government.

It all began in January 2015, when Ansar Allah, popularly known as the Houthis, loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh took control of most of the country including the capital Sana'a and in the process ousted the then President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Nearly a month after the Houthi takeover of Sana'a, Hadi managed to escape to Aden and established the internationally recognised government from there.

The Houthis are allegedly backed by Iran and Hadi has the support of a host of middle eastern nations like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and even the US.

As the conflict rages on it have taken a toll on the people there who have been caught in the middle of the crossfire.

REUTERS

According to Human Rights Watch, the coalition has conducted scores of indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes killing thousands of civilians and hitting civilian objects in violation of the laws of war, using munitions sold by the United States, United Kingdom, and others, including widely banned cluster munitions. Houthi forces have used banned antipersonnel landmines, recruited children, and fired artillery indiscriminately into cities such as Taizz and Aden, killing and wounding civilians, and launched indiscriminate rockets into Saudi Arabia.

According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), nearly 10 million of them are one step away from famine.

AFP

With little to no infrastructure like hospitals left, people including those injured in the bombings have a tough time to get the much needed medical help.

Most of them, if they are lucky, get to travel to Egypt where they hope for better treatment.

But given the nature of their injuries, the medical facilities in Egypt is not enough. And lucky for some they have a ray of hope in India. A hospital in India has been treating hundreds of Yemen civil war victims for more than three years now.

The patients are brought to the Medeor Hospital in Delhi for treatment under a humanitarian initiative of the UAE government in association with Emirates Red Crescent to support suffering Yemeni population.

This includes both soldiers and civilians who have suffered injuries in the Yemen civil war.

One of them is Helmi Mahfoodh, a soldier who was fighting for the internationally-backed government.

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He was injured in a landmine blast in 2017. Like most of the victims of the conflict, the 23-year-old was sent to Egypt for treatment. But due to the complicated nature of his injuries, the doctors there could not fix it and he was sent to India, earlier this year.

Mahfoodh, who suffered multiple injuries on his legs from the blast was left with a shattered bone which also got shortened. But thanks to the doctors at Medeor Hospital, he is now recovering well and could even walk soon.

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In India, Mahfoodh has found a new love - Bollywood movies. When Indiatimes met with him at the hospital Mahfoodh was glued to the TV in his room, which was playing a Hindi film. "They are really good," Mahfoodh said through an interpreter.

Mahfoodh also expressed his desire to walk normally again so that he can once again join the war against the rebels.

When we met Jameel Tabit, he was busy getting his 'new' hands used to operating his mobile.

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Tabit, a resident of Taiz had lost his fingers to a bullet injury. He was brought to India two months back and successfully underwent multiple surgeries to fix his hand. After being fitted with a prosthetic finger, the 28-year-old is now getting his hand used to daily tasks like eating and using his phone.

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Unlike Mahfoodh, Tabit has nothing to do with the conflict anymore and want to go back to his native village where he can do farming to support his family.

"In Yemen, there is nothing but war. India is really good," Tabit said while making the sound of bullet fires.

Muhammad Ewedh also came to India after getting initial treatment in Egypt some four months ago and he is all set to go back to his country.

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But in the four months the 38-year-old was in India he underwent multiple reconstruction surgeries including skin grafting for the blast injuries on both of his legs.

"My home, Aden is not a conflict zone. But the moment I can walk normally I will once again pick up arms to defend my country" the former soldier said.

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According to the doctors, it was a challenging task in the beginning as they are not used to treating war victims.

"Most of the patients we received were associated with war. Even though they have got an initial treatment at home, most of them do not have proper medical records, or even if they have, it will be in Arabic, which we have to then get translated. Also, these are not the kind of cases that as a doctor in India you come across every day. The nature of their injuries are something that we had not experienced so far," Dr. Mandeep Singh, an Orthopedic Surgeon said.

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He also added that there was a lot of cultural adjustment both the doctors and patients have to make.

"Most of them are young but uneducated. They come from an area of conflict and has not known peace. So for them, the experiences in India is unlike anything that they had experienced before. Once they arrive here, we give them a couple of days to get used to, before beginning the treatment process" Dr. Singh explained.

The treatment that they have already received sometimes makes things complicated. Many of the injuries are infected or are not reconstructed properly when they come to us. So we have to start fresh with the limited medical records.

"They have blast injuries, gunshot injuries, skin injuries, in some cases there are bone loses, shorting of the limbs, etc. In certain patients, we have no choice but to remove the limb, which is a tough thing to do. We have to prepare them for a life with implants and train them for that," Dr. Vijay Sharma, another Orthopedic Surgeon said.

He also added that unlike routine cases, the war victims need special psychological attention to make them move on with their lives.

"Most of the patient I have interacted with are mentally strong. Some even want to go back and fight again. But there are others who are mentally disturbed. So it is important to rehabilitate them. Unlike local patients, these people have a comparative longer hospital stay where we help them to adjust both mentally and physically," Dr. Sharma said.