In Yemen, Lavish Meals for Few, Starvation for Many and a Dilemma for Reporters

A woman in the poor mountain village of Al Juberia, Yemen.

SANA, Yemen - In a restaurant in the Yemeni capital, Sana, a waiter brought bowls of slow-cooked lamb served with mounds of rice. For dessert, there was kunafa, the classic Arabic dish made from golden pasta stuffed with cheese.

An hour later, I returned to work, in a quiet hospital room full of malnourished children with skeletal faces, suspended between life and death for lack of money and a good meal.

If this juxtaposition seems discordant, even unpleasant, it also seemed the same.

The crisis areas are often very contrasted, but in Yemen, the Gulf is particularly uncomfortable. The problem is not the lack of food; can not many people buy the food available?

Years of blockade, bombs and rising inflation have crushed the economy. An overwritten state means there is no safety net.

As a result, beggars gather outside supermarkets full of products; the markets are full of products in the cities where the hungry eat boiled leaves; and the restaurants that sell rich food are a few hundred meters from hunger halls full of despair, pain and death.

For a journalist, this poses a dilemma. Journalists travel with foreign currency packages, usually in dollars, to pay for hotel, transportation and translation costs. A small fraction of this money could go a long way for a hungry family. Should I take a break, leave my notebook and offer help?

This is a question some readers have asked after the publication of a recent article on the imminent famine in Yemen.

Many were moved by a powerful photograph of Tyler Hicks, Amal Hussain, a 7-year-old emaciated girl whose obsessive look made the human cost of war pay attention to a shocking approach.

And many were devastated to learn that shortly after our departure, Amal's mother had taken her back to the dilapidated refugee camp they called home, where she died a few days later.

Amal Hussain, who died at the age of 7, shortly after taking this picture.

Some, in their anguish, have come back to focus on us.

Why did not we do something to save Amal's life? They wanted to know. Have we taken the picture, interviewed and continued? Could we not have somehow ensured that your family would get help?

"You can take the picture and help," said a woman on Twitter. "One does not get rid of the other."

The questions have resonated. Journalists are trained to testify. Humanitarian workers and doctors are there to help people.

Giving money, or other forms of assistance, can be fraught with ethical, moral and practical complications. Is it fair to choose a person or a family for help? And if they embellished their story for the next stranger coming, thinking they could get more money?

In addition, we have a job to do.

Doctors show us around us and we sometimes end up acting like them, examining limbs as sticks and flaccid skin with clinical detachment; tabulate numbers on weight and age; Listen to families tell their tragedies with incredible calm. The perspective of death is discussed. We agree, we take note, we move on.

But as we try to imitate a stone, we are not stones, and every day in Yemen, someone told me something that caused a lump in my throat.

It was usually a trivial detail, like the absence of a few dollars to take a dying child to the hospital. You realize that Yemen is a country where people are dying for lack of a taxi.

A Yemeni fighter wounded in the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran's allied Houthis for control of Yemen in a field hospital in Durayhimi. Credit

Yemenis must also navigate that terrain.

While some die, others continue to live. One night, we returned to our hotel in Hajjah, a city surrounded by rocky ridges in a province affected by Saudi air strikes. Lying on my bed, I was surprised by a loud bang and then a burst of light that filled the sky, not a bomb, but a fireworks display.

Since the beginning of the war, the marriage rate in Yemen has increased. In this city, where malnourished children died in the hospital in the city, others danced and celebrated all night.

But it became clear that the increase in marriages was a survival mechanism.

Across the social spectrum, Yemenis are sliding down the poverty ladder. When a mother bought a sack of rice to feed her family, she can only pay a small bag. The hand of a girl in marriage returns the price of the bride, and marriages can be a source of income for the stretched families.

Disturbingly, many brides are children. According to UNICEF, two thirds of Yemeni girls are married before the age of 18, compared to 50% before the war.

As we crossed Yemen, from the port ripped off by the Battle of Hudaydah to the Houthis mountains, on a 150 km bumpy road, we saw scenes of heartbreaking suffering in a context of mountains and spectacular customs that persist.

Every day, the urban centers were occupied with men who bought khat, the beloved narcotic leaf of the Yemeni people. The bazaars of Khat are a social event. Men, some carrying firearms, meet to exchange news, meet friends and prepare for the afternoon to chew.

The women dressed in black coats passed between them; In one place, a violent fight broke out in a fight. Even if hunger bites, some are reluctant to reduce their habit.

In a clinic, Ibrahim Junaid, an anxious father who was standing near his five-month-old son, was suffering from a mass of khat that left a green stain on his lips and lips.

Mr. Junaid was 60 years old; His wife, 25, remained silent at his side. The nurses wrapped the child in a gold foil blanket to keep him warm.

Ibrahim Ali Mohammed Junaid, 60, and his wife, Zahra Ali Ahmed, 25, take their five-month-old son, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Junaid, to a clinic to cure his malnutrition.

Mr. Junaid regretted that his son did not have enough to eat, adding that he had many mouths to feed; He had married twice and had 13 children.

The value of practices such as chewing khat can be difficult to understand in these times of concern. But for men like Mr. Junaid, it's an integral part of your day. And it is the mark of the resistance of an ancient society, one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East.

"People say that Yemen is in a state of chaos, but this is not the case," said Thierry Durand, a humanitarian worker who has been working in Yemen since the 1980s and now heads a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Yemen. Mocha. "There is still structure."

"You can not put it in three lines in your newspaper or describe it in three minutes on television," he continued. "This country is structured by family, tribe, tradition and, however, these structures are still there and are strong."

However, Yemeni society is devastated by war. The air strikes of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, aided by US bombs, have killed thousands of civilians and displaced many more. But for most Yemenis, war hits their lives in a more discreet and insidious way.

Bombs explode bridges or factories, kill jobs, collapse money and drive up prices, forcing families to refrain from eating meat and vegetables. Soon, they depend on international food aid or, in the worst case, meals with boiled leaves.

A bridge in Bani Hassan was damaged by a Saudi air strike.

Small but essential things, like a taxi fare, become inaccessible.

When we left the small hospital in Aslam, where they were treating Amal Hussain, we met a young couple hitchhiking on the side of the road. They had a little baby. We stopped and offered them a ride.

They settled into the passenger seat: the father, Khalil Hadi, wrapped in the black coat of his wife, Hanna, who was holding his frail 9-month-old son, Wejdan, who had just left the room of malnutrition.

His story was typical. His house near the border with Saudi Arabia had been bombed, so they rented a room in a house near Aslam. Mr. Hadi tried to earn money by driving a motorcycle taxi and looking for wood to sell in the market.

But that was not enough, and when he tried to return home, the Houthi soldiers told him that the area was a military zone. Their food was reduced to bread, tea and halas, the vine that grew locally. His wife was four months pregnant with her second child.

Mr. Hadi did not seek compassion; Many people had the same problem, he said. "I would do anything to make money," he said. "The situation is so difficult."

At a crossroad on the way, the couple left, thanked and started to walk away. Falling in my pocket, I returned the call.

I pulled out a packet of Yemeni bank notes, worth about $ 15, and squeezed it in his hand. It seemed so useless, in the greatest order of things. What could I buy? A few days of respite, if that?

Mr. Hadi accepted the money with a funny smile. As we were leaving, I saw the couple take a dusty road, driving to their shelter, with their sick son holding tightly.

Khalil Hadi and his pregnant wife, Itanna Hassan Massani, take their nine-month-old son Wejdan from a clinic in Aslam.