Yemen’s Children Under Fire: Sniper Attacks in Taiz

This

is childhood on the front lines in Taiz, where Houthi

snipers are accused of systematically shooting hundreds of

children.

The Houthis control much of Yemen.

They drove the recognized government from the capital.

Living in the line of fire, eight-year-old Ruweida Salah

and her 10-year-old brother, Amri.

I reported last August on Ruweida’s shocking story.

Now I’ve come to meet her in person and see how she’s doing.

Ruweida went out to fetch water from the street below the house.

On her way back from fetching water, she was shot by a sniper from the

eastern direction of the area where the Houthis are stationed.

Her brother Amri was with her at the time. He was strong and brave.

He

tried

to pull his sister to the other pavement and then she was taken to

hospital. Her condition

was very serious.

Thank God she had two operations and was in intensive care for four

or five days

in a coma. Thank God

her condition is now stable, more or less.

Ruweida’s health is better but she can’t sleep because she’s tired.

Her head aches.

She’s tired. When she tries to sleep she shakes her

head.

Ruweida is afraid to go out. I tell her to go and get something;

she says no.

She’s afraid of hearing gunshots and being shot again.

In front of the family’s home, right where Ruweida was shot,

we saw a boy playing dead.

All too often here it’s not a game.

Human rights workers document every attack.

They say Houthi snipers have killed or injured more than

450 children in Taiz.

A Houthi commander here denied that.

Under armed escort we traveled to another frontline area

where children are targets.

Well, we’re making our way now to the family

house.

We have to take cover as we go. So for the next stretch we’re going to

have to

run.

Abdu Kayed Ahmed leads the way to the front of the front

line. His family are displaced and rent here is

cheap.

He runs this risk every day. So do his children.

This is the last photo of his 10-year-old son, Saber,

killed last year.

Saber was with his brother Mohammed fetching

water from

the well to the

east of

the house. They went out from the

well towards the tree and the sniper was in the two houses.

Saber was shot here and

the bullet came out from here and he died immediately.

Mohammed saw Saber die and he was shot too, in

the stomach. The seven-year-old made it home and hid

under a blanket. He was too scared to tell their mother,

Fathia, what happened.

He found out when

he put his hand under the blanket and touched my brother.

He said, "That’s it."

He started screaming. The neighbors came

and took him from the room and gave him

first aid.

He kept screaming and saying, "Where is Saber?

Where is Saber?" He thought he was hiding from him to shoot him like he

did his

brother. He stayed

like that until they took him to hospital.

While Mohammed has survived, he’s deeply traumatised.

He

hears a gunshot and screams and hides under

the door.

He can’t move or do anything. We took him out of school.

If you talk to him about something like this he gets scared and says he’ll go to

the sniper and shoot

himself.

Across Yemen the young are at risk from all sides.

A Saudi-led coalition, backed by the UK, is trying

to restore the government to power.

Coalition airstrikes have killed many Yemeni children.

Human rights workers say the difference is Houthi snipers are

systematically trying to kill them.