Diary from a bloody war

YEMEN | The first days of March 2015 were a joyful time. “The southern port city of Aden was full of beautiful wedding parties,” writes Malka, 26, in her diary. But on 15 March, everything changed.

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Yasser al Hibshi, 38, lost his house and three of his children in one of the first air raids launched by the Saudi-led coalition on the night of 26 March, 2015. He revisits his neighbourhood and speaks on the site of the ruins of his house about that fateful night.

"An air strike hit us on 26 March, 2015, in the first strikes on Yemen. It was between 2am and 2.25am, I was asleep and can’t tell you the exact time.
"Three of my children were killed: my daughter Aisha, 11, and my sons Ammar, 17, and Alaa al Deen, 14.
"I was taken by an ambulance to hospital where I stayed for more than 15 days. I was injured in my head and have two parts of my spine broken. I was in a coma and had no idea what had happened, no idea that my children had died.
"My relatives used to visit me in hospital and I thought my children were in the intensive care unit, not in the morgue. I thought they were OK. I didn’t know until I had surgery in my spine. I got out of surgery and after some five days they started giving me the news gradually. They were gradually telling me this neighbor has passed away, the other neighbour has passed away… I then asked them directly: where are my children? Then they told me that my children had passed away. Three of them. There were some 27 others from Al Muallem’s family, Al Hadrami and Al Jermuzee… all of them were my neighbours. Until this day I expect them to show up.
"I took me more than five years to save money and build this house. We lived in it for around 15 years. I had a stable life… my children, my house, my car, my shop … It’s all gone now. I used to have a grocery shop, a car, and I was coping… my kids were studying…. Today we have to pay rental fees and suffering without any source of livelihood. I have no source of income now except for the help I get from good people. Some NGOs reached out to us but now we’re not getting anything. I still have spinal injuries… If I fully recovered I would look for work, but it’s taking long. I feel a lot of pain if I had to pick up something heavy.
"We won’t die of hunger because some relatives and friends are helping us. I’ve sold my car and my shop so I can cover my children’s needs.
"Yes my children still go to school. One, Najm al Deen, is in the ninth grade. The other is living with his grandpa because he’s still traumatized. He’s staying at my father’s house to live away from the tragedy and overcome the trauma of what happened to us. He was not in the house during the air strike so we try to make him forget what happened to his siblings, because the neighbourhood would always remind him of this tragedy. We were thinking of sending my other son with him but he has not yet fully recovered… he still has shrapnel in his body. Now he’s getting treatment and continues going to school.
"I want to tell the world that we’ve had enough of the war. There is too much tragedy, so many families have been wiped out, for what? We hope that God will deliver Yemen and the Yemenis out of this situation.
We hope to get out of this crisis."

Photo: Nuha Mohammedi/NRC

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The entry/exit control point “Maiorsk” is one of four vehicle and pedestrian crossing points in Donetsk region. It is located about 20 km from the non-government controlled Horlivka town. The grey zone between the Ukrainian checkpoint and self-proclaimed “DPR” is the widest among all of the EECPs. After the ECCP was opened in early 2015 there was no bus connection in this corridor, people had to walk nearly 2-3 kilometres to take another bus. The situation changed in 2016, when it was agreed to launch bus shuttles. Over the period of its existence, the EECP has had many temporary closures due to escalation of the hostilities. Every day at least 7,000 people, mostly elderly, cross this entry-exit point to get their pension and social payments, visit their friends and relatives, buy essential goods. While crossing the contact line, concerned civilians are often exposed to serious security and safety risks such as minefields along the roads, periodic shelling and queuing at the checkpoints in harsh weather conditions for long hours.

50-year old ski-instructor Oksana is one of many people waiting for hours to cross the entry-exit point.

“I left Alchevsk town on the non-government controlled area (92 km away) at 07:00 in the morning. It is afternoon, and I have not passed yet. There were times we were waiting for several days to cross, because of military hostilities. I currently live in government controlled Kharkiv with my husband. Comparing with other internally displaced people it is easier for me to adapt to new city, because I have my own apartment and job there. I am not planning to come back to my hometown, because there is no job for me there. Many people left, mostly elderly remained in the town”, - says Oksana.

In this picture Oksana talking to NRC communication officer Anastasiia Karpilianska

Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/NRC

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Iryna is 10 years old, and Liliia’s eldest daughter. She still remembers the night their house was hit. Iryna and her sibling all suffer from post-traumatic stress. It is hard to concentrate at school and she has nightmares and anxiety. “The main concern for me now is that the active phase of the war does not break out again. I am afraid that my house will be destroyed again. After all, we hear the sounds of shots every night,”says her mother Liliia.

Background story:
Liliia Poturoieva is 39. She has experienced terrible events that completely changed the life of herself and her large family and left an indelible mark on everyone's soul. She lives in the frontline village of Verkhnia Vilkhova in Stanytsia Luhanska district, Luhansk region.

Liliia has six children. The oldest is Oleksandr. He is 20. He lives separately from his parents and earns his own living. Ihor is 12. He is a shy and calm schoolboy, always ready to help parents with the housework. Her eldest daughter Iryna is 10. She is a schoolgirl and mother's main housekeeper. She cooks and looks after younger children. Yana is 7. She is a first-grade pupil. She is a cheerful, active and very energetic girl. The children are forced to go to school in a neighboring village 5 kilometers away, since there is simply no school in their village.

Her youngest son Illia,5, and daughter Aryna, 2, are always staying at home with their mother. The family cannot afford a kindergarten for children. Now Liliia is pregnant again. This will be the seventh child in the family. Her husband Viktor helps her to cope with all of them.

Before the conflict, the whole big family lived in a small house with two rooms. There was no work. The main income was child allowances and random earnings from the cows, goats, rabbits and poultry.

“There was no work in the village. There was no opportunity to travel to other settlements to work. We tried to make money by selling milk”.

In February 2015, at midnight, heavy shelling began. Viktor, Liliia's husband, went out into the yard to see the direction of the shots. Suddenly a shell fell near their yard, and the second shell landed 7 meters away from Viktor, who was standing on the house porch. Viktor got a serious shell shock and lost his hearing for a while.
The blast wave knocked out all the windows in the house. Under one of the windows there was a child's bed, where Liliia’s youngest son slept. That night Liliia saved the life of her son with her son.

“When the blast hit, I covered my baby with my own body, and the glass from the broken window hit me in the back”.

The consequences of that shelling are still noticeable. Liliia has problems with her speech. She is stuttering. She is not the only one.

“The children experience anxiety, concentration problems, fears and, as a result, urinary incontinence”.

The house was seriously damaged in the blast. All the windows were broken, the front walls were destroyed and the roof and the foundation were seriously damaged. However, Liliia and her family did not dare to leave because it was too risky to leave the house unattended. They tried to repair the house on their own. They covered the broken windows with plastic wrap. They even had to spend their nights in the basement because it was the warmest and the safest place in their household.There was no help from the local authorities.

“At first I didn’t want to ask for help. I did not believe that anyone would really help us. My husband advised me to go to the NRC office and find out about the Heavy repair project, because he heard that NRC had already helped someone in the village”.

Now the house is in the process of restoration. There is a new slate on the roof. Renovation works on the walls have been completed. Three small rooms for the children have been completed. New windows have been installed and internal works are being carried out now.

“The main thing for me now is that the active phase of the war does not break out again. I am afraid that my house will be destroyed again. After all, we hear the sounds of shots every night”, Liliia says.

Photo: Ingebjørg Kårstad/Norwegian Refugee Council

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Iryna falls asleep to the sound of shots

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Europe

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NRC_Norway · 2d

NIGERIA: Fire outbreak ravaged 50+ tents belonging to displaced families in Tungunshe. Colleagues who witnessed inc… https://t.co/nnbc13y6Jf

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NRC_Norway · 2d

RT @hildejoergensn: Right now. Another fire! But what to do about it when you have nothing? No fire breaks. No water. No nothing. Then y…

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RT @H_NAILI: Update: the fire witnessed this morning at a displaced site in Tungunshe was contained yet it affected 52 households. #Nigeria…

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