In the Al-Suwayda camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north of Marib, Khaled Sabr’s family is living through a nightmare: a tragic accident claimed their children’s lives.
While Yemenis have suffered from the presence of legacy landmines – remnants of previous conflicts dating back to the 1960s – Yemen has since 2015 been plagued by Houthi landmines, which have been planted by the hundreds of thousands across large swathes of land. Often, landmines may be moved from their initial position by water, or when strong winds displace sand, in what is known as landmine migration.
In the case of the Sabr family, the landmine responsible for the children’s death was a Houthi landmine that had been swept away by floods from an area controlled by the Houthi militia to an area adjacent to the IDP camp.
After finding a strange object on the ground, the Sabr children had taken it to play with it. When they tried to set fire to it, the device exploded.
The grieving mother told Project Masam: “Our children went out as usual to play next to our camp, but less than an hour later, we heard the sound of a terrifying explosion, we ran with great fear and found our children killed.”
Ali Khaled Sabr, the uncle of the victims, also told Masam: “We left our homes for fear of war and landmines, and yet we were followed by mines even in our places of refuge through the floods, and now our children have been killed, while others are seriously injured because of these deadly explosives that are swept away towards us by the floods.
“Now, we appeal to Project Masam to clear our area of mines and protect us and our children from these deadly explosives.”
One of the largest displacement camps in Marib, the UNHCR-run Al-Suwayda camp is a temporary home to some 2,000 displaced families.
