Landmines and wheelchairs in Sanaá

There is one basic fact difficult to divulge and get through: prior to the aggression on Yemen by Saudi Arabia and coalition of mercenaries with the silent approval and support of US Intelligence, situation in Yemen was already unbearably difficult.
What is known as the current Yemen had been a battle field of almost 20 conflicts, some overlapping, others extremely long, few still continuing.
A General I briefly met in 2011 prior to the revolution which ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh told me his job was to ´mine-clear certain areas of Yemen´. He had been working on it since 1992, almost 20 years.

A report by OCHA on children tormented by landmines dated July 2013 states: ´Landmines have plagued the people of Yemen for decades. In the 1960s, they were laid along the border that separated the north and south of the country, and they were a tragic feature of tensions throughout the 1990s.
More recently, Government and militant forces have been accused of using landmines between 2004 and 2011 in conflicts in Sa’ada Governorate in the north and Abyan Governorate in the south. In 2011 and 2012, antipersonnel mines were reportedly also used in and around Sana’a, and in March 2012, Yemen’s Ministry of Defense reported landmine casualties in Hajjah Governorate on the country’s north-west coast.
The number of mine-related civilian casualties climbed significantly in the third quarter of 2012, following an announcement by the military in June that they had ousted militants from Abyan. As a result, thousands of people who had fled the conflict returned home to areas that had been heavily mined.´

In the same report:  ´The Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC) is doing much of this work with the support of the UN Development Progamme […]. Between July 2011 and February 2012, YEMAC and its partners destroyed almost 290,000 explosive remnants of war, including almost 90,000 anti-personnel mines as well as anti-vehicle mines, shells and improvised explosive devices´.

We are talking about thousands of bombs, with no exaggeration. This, prior to the war on Yemen in 2015.
Let it sink in that what has come after will require decades, if not a century, to assess, digest and clear.

Every personal memory now makes reference to prior and during the war (during because the war is still raging on Yemen).
There is one scene I have clear in mind. It belongs to the end of 2014.
As part of a national effort to reach those less fortunate, the Yemeni government had bought wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, prostethics and cranes for the disabled and was doing medical checkups in Sanaá. Those who could not be helped in Yemen were going to be flown either to India or Egypt for medical treatment.
The maimed were all from prior wars. Sanaá had been invaded by buses coming from almost all the governorates.
In our hotel we were hosting  people coming from the villages (mainly  from Hajjah and Amran). Some could barely walk, others were crawling. Limbs were missing in children and adults alike (mines do not stop exploding simply because a war is declared over).
In the lobby, in our offices, we had mountains of folded, shining, new wheelchairs ready to be distributed.
It was hectic, with loud voices.
Until I heard no more: before my eyes  the scene of mothers  taking pictures of the family united in front of the new gift, the wheel chair. They were smiling, they were joyous.
Who, in Europe, would take a selfie with a wheelchair?
I had to rush to the back of the  office crying and suffocating in tears. I was strangling myself with tears. I had just realised some families required 2, 3, 4 wheelchairs just for their children.

These same people are being bombed, every day, in Yemen. With an abundance of infamous, internationally banned cluster bombs.
Alhmdulillah, Yemenis say.