The Al-Aqel family … the story of a family displaced by the fires of war and sheltered by hunger to eat trees in the Al-Qafr District

In the past years, the fire of the battles taking place in Al-Hudaydah governorate forced thousands of citizens to leave their homes and flee to other safer areas, as is the case with Hajj Muhammad al-Aqil, his wife and his children, who left their homes in the “Tuhayat” district, south of Hodeidah, and fled to one of the villages Al-Qafr Directorate of Ibb Governorate.

The displaced Muhammad al-Aqil told the Yemen Monitor: I left my home to flee from the hell of battles to collide with another, more tragic reality. Other than eating trees and sleeping on the ground. ”

In that village known as “Silas Rababa,” the extent of the suffering that this displaced person shares with the people of the region is embodied, as he and other residents of that village race to collect trees known as “halas”, cook and eat them in an attempt to alleviate the bitterness of hunger that has drawn its marks on their bodies and their children.

Al-Aqil points out that his resorting with the people of that village to feed on the trees of “al-hales” is a last resort to confront hunger after all his attempts to obtain a job or a source of income have failed. He says this while the visitor to that village notices the tragic human condition of these displaced people and the local population.

The matter is more terrible and does not stop at the lack of food and the absence of a human role, for the sane lives with his children and his wife in small huts made of the remains of empty bags of wheat, as these huts do not provide the slightest protection from the cold weather or the heat of the midday sun, according to the people.

The “sane person” suffocates with bitter tears and digests crying before the tears shed while he wanders with us around the miserable place in which he lives with his family, which, by the way, is the situation in which the population lives there in the absence of humanitarian interventions from international organizations and the absence of any local role.

It is estimated that more than 80% of the total population of Al-Qafr district in Ibb governorate, amounting to 140,690 thousand people, is on the verge of starvation, while the displaced people who flow into the district from various conflict areas suffer miserable living conditions.