Aml Ahmed, a young Yemeni woman from Matar district in Taiz, was full of hope and happiness. She had a dream to complete her university education while she was preparing for her wedding. Like many young woman, Aml always dreamed of the day she would get married.
It took one incident to shatter her dreams. As Aml was on her way to complete some of her wedding preparation, she was stopped by a crowd of children playing with a strange item.
Through the Mine Risk Education sessions carried out by Masam teams in Yemen, Aml knew that some of the objects on the roads might be booby traps. She felt that she had seen a similar photo of the object laying on the road, and that it might be fatal for the little children surrounding it.
In her interview with Project Masam, Aml said: “When I saw the children playing with this strange item, I looked closely at it and knew that it was a camouflaged landmine. Masam’s awareness-raising campaigns educated us about these deadly devices, so I rushed to the children and carefully took that dangerous thing from them.
“At this point, one of the children jumped to retrieve what I had taken from them, so the strange body fell to the ground and exploded.”
Loss, pain and bullying
At the time of explosion, Aml’s beautiful world was destroyed. She had just sought to save these children from the danger, but she paid a high price for it, she claimed.
Aml said: “I do not regret what I did, because I cannot see a child in danger without taking action. I do not feel regret, despite what happened to me because of this incident, as I lost one of my eyes and my hand was injured, not to mention that my groom abandoned me and many people wronged me.”
Aml was left disfigured – having lost an eye – and was left in great pain. The young woman claimed her accident made her groom change his mind about getting married to her.
She said, “Shortly after the incident, contact from my groom and his family was cut off, and I heard after a while that he got engaged and married [to someone else].”
Aml decided to focus all her attention, and what remained of her strength and determination, on her educational ambition.
Proudly, Aml completed her studies and graduated to become a teacher in a school. However, Aml’s pains did not end even after devoting her life to education, as she told Project Masam: “I was confronted with bullying and questions that have always bothered me from many people, and I taught high school students for a year and suffered a lot from their childishness and bullying, so I went back to teaching primary classes to put an end to that harassment.”
Aml now spends her time between reviewing her students’ notebooks and homework and chatting with some friends and family members – having somewhat self-isolated from the wider community.
