SOPHIE MCNEILL: Ten children killed and more than twenty injured when Saudi warplanes bombed their school. Casualties in a Middle East war you probably haven’t heard of…

JAMIE MCGOLDRICK : “Yemen is the forgotten, abandoned emergency and it suits a lot of countries”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Where civilians are deliberately targeted, child soldiers die fighting on the front lines and babies starve. 

FRANCESCO SEGONI: “This is a catastrophe, this is a real humanitarian crisis”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Tonight on Foreign Correspondent, Yemen – The War on Children

[TITLES]
Sana’a, Yemen
The War on Children
Reporter: Sophie McNeill

SOPHIE MCNEILL: You have to be either extremely brave or perhaps ignorant of history to pick a fight with the people of Yemen. Yemenis have a long and proud warrior tradition. In a rite of passage, small boys receive a prized Jambiya dagger. Teenagers get machine guns. 

CROWD CHANTING: “Death to America. Death to Israel. Damn the Jews. Victory for Islam!”

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Civil wars have wracked Yemen for decades, but since March last year, fighters from the Zaidi minority rebel group known as the Houthis, have ruled these streets, in the Capital Sana’a, as well as large parts of the rest of the country.

LEADER ON STAGE: [to crowd] “We’re not scared of death. We are martyrs”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Yemen is now gripped by a civil war between several factions. The main struggle is between the Houthis and the president they deposed last year. Now exiled, he is supported by a group of Arab states, led by Yemen’s powerful neighbour, Saudi Arabia. 

The net result? Seventeen months of relentless Saudi Coalition air attacks and ground fighting, killing a total more than 6.500 people here in the Middle East’s poorest nation. With the Saudi’s imposing a blockade, it’s not an easy place to get into, but after weeks of trying we finally make it in. What we witness is the unfolding tragedy of a city under siege.

[hospital corridor] “A tour of Sana’a’s busy hospitals reveals the true cost of this war on civilians – particularly kids”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Eight year old Faris was asleep in his home north of Sana’a when a missile hit his house. He’s struggling to make sense of what his life has become.

FARIS: “When I leave…”.

GRANDAD: “What will you do?”

FARIS: “Go out and play”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The eight year old’s mum and brother were killed in the attack.

GRANDAD: “When you leave you will go out and play with other kids. And go for a walk”.

FARIS: “Will I live?”

GRANDAD: “Huh?”

FARIS: “Will I live?”

GRANDAD: “Of course you’ll live, if God allows. God will heal you”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Faris has severe burns, stomach injuries and a badly fractured leg. His dressings need to be regularly changed. 

FARIS: [crying] “Please doctor, don’t! Please doctor, don’t! It burns! You’re hurting me, you’re hurting me. For god’s sake, for god’s sake!”

SOPHIE MCNEILL: “This is just so horrific to watch and to know that Faris has to do this every second day and that this is going to continue for months on end as the doctors here try and heal him”.

Down the hall we find ten year old Murad and his family from Saad’a, a northern city heavily bombed and shelled by the Saudi Coalition. Two weeks ago, he and his cousins were playing near their home and they found a shiny object in the grass. 

MURAD: “The bomb. I picked it up while I was playing and it exploded and I got injured”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It was a cluster bomb. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous cases of the Saudi Coalition dropping these widely banned munitions in Yemen. Murad now has shrapnel embedded in his brain and his nine year old cousin, Abdurazag was killed.

MURAD’S UNCLE: [showing picture to Sophie on phone] “He died in hospital. He was injured in both of his thighs. He was fully paralysed. He had a deep injury to his stomach”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Murad’s brain surgery will cost the family hundreds of dollars, which they just don’t have. They’re going to stay in Sana’a to wait and see if anyone can help them. 

There is a fierce propaganda war being waged here. During our visit, the Houthis attempt to tightly control what we see and highlight the cost of the Saudi attacks. But even without their encouragement, in nearly every neighbourhood in Sana’a, you can find evidence of the alleged war crimes committed by the Saudi Coalition. 

JAMIE MCGOLDRICK: [United Nations, Yemen] It’s been statistically shown, up to fifty per cent of all the casualties have been civilians. The hospitals, the schools, public buildings have not been spared in this war and that’s been the tragedy. I think, it’s been one of the hallmarks of this crisis”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It was fear over the Houthi’s ties to Shia Iran that triggered the Saudis to intervene in their neighbour’s civil war. The Saudi’s war is backed by US and UK military advisers who assist in selecting targets to bomb, but the UN has accused the Coalition of deliberately attacking civilian homes and striking military targets in densely populated areas - such as this air raid on a Houthi missile storage facility in a Sana’a suburb. 

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: “The shock blew out windows almost four kilometres from here, the aftershock, and the rubble just landed everywhere, crushing cars, crushing buses”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Hisham Al-Omeisy is a political analyst who lives in Sana’a.

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: [political analyst] “The attack actually happened in the morning, while everybody’s on the streets, the kids are playing in the streets. I was actually having coffee right next to my window and I suddenly saw this huge ball of fire. I was in total disbelief just standing there. Then the pressure wave came in and it just knocked out my window right in my face and it knocked me down. The problem with the Saudis is that they don’t really care if the military camp is in a residential area, if their target is a neighbourhood that is full of people”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The Saudi attacks appear to have only increased local support for the Houthi’s. 

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: “They thought people would be driven by fear and surrender. What they ended up doing, is really ticking off people and now they are really mad and they’re seeking vengeance. I was very vocal anti-Houthi at the beginning of the war, but when the bombs started landing next door with utter disregard for my life, for my family’s, for my kids, I had to side with the Houthi’s”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: We visit Sana’a during a lull in the air attacks, while peace talks are underway in Kuwait. But people here know that this could change at any moment. 

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: “It’s not the airstrike’s we fear as much as anticipation – waiting in fear of the airstrike actually happening. It’s very traumatic for kids. My kids for instance now, I lock the door hard enough and they flinch, thinking it’s a bomb. My son is six year’s old, but he is so traumatised by the war and it’s going to take years for him to recover from that”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Constantly living in fear is just one part of the suffering in Yemen. There’s just not enough food or medicine here. The Saudis and their Coalition allies impose an air and sea blockade. The economy has collapsed and the streets of Sana’a are now filled with beggars. The Coalition bombed Yemen’s main port a few months ago. Catastrophic for a country that imports 90% of its food. 

MAN YELLING: [scramble by crowd for food handout] “One by one. Please! One by one”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Desperate parents have gathered to see if their names are on a local NGO list for handouts of flour and oil. 

[standing outside gate] “It is just mayhem here at this food distribution in Sana’a. The UN says that since the war began, food prices have gone up 60% here in Yemen, that means that 14 million people are food insecure – which basically means they’re hungry and they don’t know where their next meal is going to come from”.

MAN TAKING FOOD: “Lack of food is the hardest part. We have to grab it wherever we can”.

WOMAN: “I gave my number to this guy so I’m going to take my share now”.

CHILD: “Here’s mine. Here’s mine”.

WOMAN [CHECK]: “My turn, my turn”.

MAN: “Piss off! Who’s this? Is this you? Go go! Yes go ahead”. 

WOMAN: “I want to sign my name up. What’s the problem here? My husband’s injured and I want you to sign up my name and help me. I have nobody to help me but God”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Outside the capital, millions of Yemenis have been forced from their homes. Just a few hours north of Sana’a the situation is desperate. We’re on our way to one of the many camps for displaced people. These families here receive hardly any aid. They depend on the medical charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres – MSF – which runs a mobile clinic here twice a week. 

“Since the war began last March, 2.8 million people have been displaced inside Yemen itself. Now here at this camp there’s a 1,000 people living and there’s no food distribution for the people here. Everyone is just struggling to survive and to feed their children”.

In this war aid workers are given no guarantee of protection. In the past year alone, four MSF supported hospitals have been targeted, leaving dozens of staff and patients killed or wounded. Such are the dangers that since our visit, MSF has been forced to evacuate international staff from hospitals near here.

FRANCESCO SEGONI: [Medecins Sans Frontieres] “This is a catastrophe, this is a real humanitarian crisis. They don’t have just enough food, not near enough food. And I mean as they are more vulnerable at this age, we see a lot of malnutrition among the kids. About 20% of the children we see are diagnosed as malnourished, half of them severely so”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: This is where 14 month old Mazen has been living for the past year. His grandma tells us that his breastfeeding mother died two months ago from an illness. They don’t know what. 

GRANDMA: “What should we do? We are doing our best for him. Usually he eats our food. A piece of bread with tea. It depends how much money we have in our pocket for milk. But if we don’t have enough money for the milk we can’t help him. Only God can do that”. 

JAMIE MCGOLDRICK: “One in three of every under five children in this country is severely malnourished, so that’s 1.3 million people. We’re in a very difficult position in Yemen because it’s a very small country. It’s a country that people can easily forget and I think that’s what’s happening globally because it’s forgotten. If you look at it in the context of the Middle East, you’ve got competing with you know the Palestine’s, competing with the new crisis of the Syria’s and the Iraq’s and where there’s just maybe more geo political interests than in Yemen”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The most malnourished children from all round the north of Yemen come here to Al Sabheen Hospital in Sana’a. Today the malnutrition ward is packed full and there’s no money for more staff or to open any extra beds. Seventeen month old Eissa is severely malnourished and close to death. 

EISSA’S FATHER: “For about ten months – diarrhoea, bloated stomach and a mouth infection. We’ve been trying to cure him but it’s not working. We’ve been here for ten days. Of course, we can take care of him the best we can. We don’t sleep day and night worrying about him. What else can we do? My wife feels devastated and stays up all night crying. She’s exhausted from looking after him”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Doctors say Eissa is now in a coma and he needs to be in the intensive care unit, but to get into the ICU here, you have to pay and Eissa’s family just doesn’t have the money. 

DOCTOR: “Can pay money here in the UCI, can get Eissa inside here or cannot. If cannot, sit in the emergency room”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: “So if they can’t pay, they can’t come in here”.

DOCTOR: “Cannot pay, cannot accept the case here”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Little Emtiaz is two but is so acutely malnourished, she weighs as much as some newborns. A chest infection has now left her gasping for breath. Her grandma says all they’ve had at home recently is tea and bread. 

GRANDMA: “There’s no money”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Emtiaz is in desperate need of a ventilator which they don’t have here in emergency.

OTHER WOMAN: “How come you can’t do anything for her? Don’t you have pity?”

NURSE: “Hey, Mohammad. Talk to the doctor to get her to the ICU!”

MOHAMAD: “We want to take her to the ICU but the grandmother doesn’t have money”. 

NURSE: “I don’t know why there is a problem. Why don’t you have her transferred to the ICU? 

MOHAMAD: “Yesterday they gave that order”. 

GRANDMA: “Her grandfather has gone to look for money”. 

NURSE: “They have no money. So we’re going to get the manager to grant them an exemption”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It’s incredibly difficult for the staff here, with no funds and hardly any resources, deciding who lives and who dies.

[nurse and doctor arguing in hallway] “I have to transfer the case”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: After much debate, the doctors tell us an exemption has been granted for Eissa and he will be moved into intensive care as soon as there’s room. An exemption is also granted for the little girl Emtiaz, but her grandma is then told there’s no more functioning ventilators available in the ICU. 

NURSE: “I cannot accept this case in the Intensive Care Unit because there are only two machines for two patients inside. I cannot take from the patients to do this. What can I do? This is a big problem here in Yemen”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Al Sabheen used to have six more ventilators for children. 

DOCTOR: [counting the ventilators] “One, two, three, four, five, six”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: “None of them work?”

DOCTOR: “Yeah, not work”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: “You don’t have the funds or the parts”.

DOCTOR: “No”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The Saudi blockade is crippling Yemen’s health system. The lives of more than 4,000 kidney dialysis patients were at risk due to a lack of supplies. Medecins Sans Frontieres stepped in promising to airfreight critically needed drugs and equipment for the next six months. But even they can’t guarantee a steady supply of fuel for hospital generators. 

[in hallway] “The electricity has just gone off at this hospital which means all these dialysis machines have stopped and the nurses are now frantically trying to restart them again”.

The power kicks back in, the immediate crisis averted for these patients. Others aren’t so lucky. The UN has since announced that 40,000 cancer patients in Yemen will no longer receive medication because there just isn’t the money to buy the drugs.

JAMIE MCGOLDRICK: “The medicines are so severely priced, it is way beyond people’s ways and means. There are many people dying here, silent deaths. They’re dying deaths of preventable diseases that never should happen”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: We’re heading out of Sana’a again, travelling south with Osama al Fakih, one of Yemen’s leading human rights researchers at the NGO Mwatana. You have to be careful on these roads. Adding to the chaos and suffering, the spectre of Al Qaeda and Islamic State – both groups are exploiting the civil war to seize ground in the south and east. The frontier of Al Qaeda territory is about 20 kilometres from here. 

We’re on our way to visit the scene of one of the worst alleged war crimes Osama and his colleagues have investigated, where last October Saudi Coalition war planes transformed a wedding into a mass funeral. 

OSAMA AL FAKIH: [in car] “And that number of casualties is forty civilians were killed and forty two were injured”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Mohammad Jamal and his family were celebrating a wedding. Three of his cousins were all getting married on the same day. It was mid evening and the wedding was in full swing. 

MOHAMMAD JAMAL: “During the night, after dinner, we heard the planes as usual”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: But then suddenly, an air strike hit.

MOHAMMAD JAMAL: “I went to this house to try and save the women inside and the war plane was still hovering overhead. Everyone who was around trying to help got scared and ran away thinking they’d drop another missile. A lot of people died here. The kids who were playing here in this yard died too”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Mohammad’s five year old daughter, Jood, had been playing with her cousins. 

MOHAMMAD JAMAL: “After the hit we were looking for her – me and her mother, in all the surrounding houses. We thought she might have run away. We still had hope she was alive. But on the second day our friends who came to help found her hair ribbon”. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: That was all they could recognise of their daughter, a hair ribbon. In all of the forty people killed here that night, eighteen were members of Mohammad’s family.

MOHAMMAD JAMAL: “Since this incident we feel like we’re living in a nightmare. We still can’t believe the loss. Our life became empty with no hope. We lost all happiness in life. As for the countries who are helping Saudi Arabia to strike Yemen, they share the same responsibility. They are criminals as well. We won’t forget them for this. 

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It’s not just the Saudi Coalition which stands accused of war crimes in Yemen. The United Nations says the Houthi’s hide troops and weapons in heavily populated areas. They’ve also been accused of deliberately firing artillery into civilian areas controlled by other factions in this war.

OSAMA AL FAKIH: [Human Rights Researcher] “These incidents must be documented and the voices of victims must be heard. Houthis have been accused of indiscriminately shelling populated areas which led to also hundreds of civilians killed and injured”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: Back in Sana’a at the hospital, finally some good news. Murad, the boy injured by a cluster bomb, is going to be helped. MSF will pay for the cost of his brain surgery to remove the shrapnel.

MURAD’S FATHER: “They surgery is very crucial for him to survive because the shrapnel has gone inside the skull very close to his brain. It has to be removed. If God allows we’re hoping the surgery will be successful”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: And what of Eissa and Emtiaz? The babies suffering horrific malnutrition? Doctors tell us Emtiaz was left brain damaged as a result of being so malnourished. Her family took her out of the hospital and back to their village. We don’t know if she’s still alive. 

We went looking for Eissa as well but he wasn’t there. He’d died just hours after finally being admitted into the ICU. His family had already buried him in an unmarked grave. They didn’t have enough money for a gravestone. 

[at funeral of young boy with open coffin] All across this country, Yemenis are burying their children. Sixteen year old Osama was killed by a sniper yesterday. He was fighting on the front line. [men dancing at funeral] Approximately 30% of those fighting for the Houthis are believed to be child soldiers. 

CHILD SOLDIER: “I’m just a fighter in the name of God, among many fighters who defend us against Saudi and American attacks on our country. I never get scared. The victory is with us who have God on our side”.

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: “You’re playing with people’s psyches when death is all around. It is okay for kids to pick up a gun and fight. They’ve been dancing, they’ve been singing some songs which is kind of sad. The death of a child shouldn’t be celebrated, but it’s become so normal now. It is a coping mechanism but it shouldn’t be a means to an end, the end being it’s okay, death is okay. That is very disturbing”.

CROWD CHANT: “God is great! Death to America and Israel! Victory to Islam!”

BOY’S FATHER: “This is our chant, that we always repeat in Yemen”. 

CROWD CHANT: “We don’t be defeated! We won’t be defeated!”

SOPHIE MCNEILL: The dead boy’s father says he’s willing to send his other two sons to go and fight as well. 

BOY’S FATHER: “If somebody invaded your country would you surrender? If your homes, kids and country were destroyed and under siege for years, would you be silent? Why is the whole world watching the persecution of Yemenis in silence?”

SOPHIE MCNEILL: People here claim Al Qaeda and Islamic State flourish in areas outside Houthi control. They see their fight as one against Sunni extremism.

BOY’S FATHER: “What would you do if ISIS fighters came to your country? We’re being asked to surrender ourselves to ISIS! They’re asking us to just surrender our weapons”.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: A few days after we flew out of Sana’a, peace talks broke down. Saudi Coalition warplanes began to pound the capital again and targets all over the north of the country. A school was hit, a hospital, a chip factory. Hundreds more civilians killed, many of them children. Each death it seems deepening the hatred and the resolve for revenge. 

HISHAM AL-OMEISY: “They’ve been galvanised. I mean you see death all around you and they think death is inevitable, I’m going to die here anyway - air strikes or whatever, might as well pick up my gun and fight and kill one of the guys of the enemies”.