War pushes Yemen’s disabled population over the 4.8 million mark


A Handicap International official authored a report with the latest on the disabled’s fate in a country of 30 million. In 2014, before the Yemen conflict broke out, fewer than three million people lived with disabilities. Strikes, mines, and stray bullets are the main causes. The “collapse of the health system " and the loss of services have aggravated the crisis.


Aden (AsiaNews) – Advocacy groups are warning that the number of people with disabilities in Yemen has “skyrocketed” after seven years of civil war, a conflict that continues to produce victims, virtually forgotten by the international community

The latest warning comes from Yasmine Daelman, Advocacy and Humanitarian Policy Advisor for the Yemen Mission at Handicap International, who recently authored a report for the NGO.

In it she notes that mutilated and disabled people are always "the first to be forgotten," forced to survive in extreme conditions.

According to UN estimates, around 4.8 million people suffer from at least one disability in Yemen out of a population of 30 million, up from around three million before the war – though it is impossible to verify the number because of a lack of official data.

“The rate of disabilities has skyrocketed since the beginning of the conflict,” Daelman told AFP, in particular due to the extensive use of explosive weapons in strikes, mines and stray bullets in populated areas, leading to large numbers of amputations.

Psychological traumas and mental health problems have also greatly increased, the report notes. With the “complete collapse of the health system,” people with disabilities suffer the most since access to hospitals and health services is thus severely limited.

Sometimes the disabled have to travel up to three days, on dangerous roads, to obtain basic healthcare. “It is quite shocking to see how they face very different challenges,” Daelman explained, citing the example of deaf people who fear leaving their homes since they cannot hear attacks or explosions.

Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, which morphed into a regional conflict in March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries intervened.

So far, almost 400,000 people have died, including 10,000 children, in what the United Nations deems the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” made more “devastating” by the COVID-19 outbreak.

At present, hunger haunts millions of people with children likely suffering the consequences for decades. Included are the more than three million internally displaced people who live in conditions of extreme poverty, hunger and epidemics of various kinds, not the least cholera.

Against the tragic backdrop, a two-month truce agreed in April by the warring parties represents the first countrywide ceasefire since 2016. For the United Nations, this provides some hope.

Many now would like to see it extended to give the population some breathing space to cope with the ongoing humanitarian, economic and social catastrophe.