ADEN // The blast from a landmine hidden in front of the Ali Ahmed house in Aden’s Kour Maksar district tore through several family members gathered outside.
The mother Mohsenah, 48, died. Her son Abdulqader Mubarak, 13, suffered serious injuries and his left hand was later amputated. Sama Ali Ahmed, Mohsenah’s 35-year-old daughter-in-law, bled to death after her limbs were ripped off in the blast.
According to Human Rights Watch, Houthi rebels battling Yemen’s internationally recognised government have planted landmines throughout the country in a bid to slow the advance of loyalist forces who have made wide gains in recent months.
Landmines have killed at least 12 people and wounded more than nine in the Yemeni provinces of Abyan, Aden, Marib, Lahj and Taez since September, according to HRW, which believes the actual number of mine victims may be much higher.
On September 1, 1998, Yemen’s government signed the internationalMine Ban Treaty. Government loyalists have not been reported to be laying mines.
Abdulqader Mubarak, a ninth grade student, recounted the horror caused by the mine explosion when The National received permission from Al Wali hospital to see him.
“While me, my mother and my sister-in-law were cleaning the outside of our house [in the aftermath of the war], a landmine exploded and I did not see anything, I just saw my mother bleeding,” he said from his bed in the intensive care unit.
“While my mother was badly bleeding, she was telling me, ‘do not worry, I am good’,” he said. “Then I heard the shouting of the children around us, and I saw the torn-off limbs of my sister-in-law”.
Muneef Muthana, a hospital manager, said Mohsenah died half an hour after being admitted. “We could not save her”, he said.
Abdulqader Mubarak was rushed to the operation room where “we amputated his hand and performed many operations on him, by more than one doctor”, Mr Muthana said.
“His left hand was not working and there were fragments in different parts of his body.”
Moa’ath Al Yaseri, a leader in the popular resistance in Taez, accused the Houthis of planting landmines in areas still under their control in Taez province.
“The [pro-government] forces which are coming from Lahj and Aden have minesweepers and that is why they could sweep the landmines. However, the popular resistance in Taez province does not have minesweepers and that is why we could not clear the landmines.”
The Yemen executive mine action centre in Aden said that it had cleared thousands of landmines planted in Aden and Lahj provinces since July.
Yemeni army Brigadier General Murad Turaiq said the landmines had been an obstacle for pro-government forces as they fought to recapture the northern Marib province. “Even if we could liberate most of Marib areas, we still need time to clear the landmines from the province,” he said.
A source at the Yemen executive mine action centre in the capital Sanaa, which is under Houthi control, said: “Nowadays, we do not have work to do as the Houthis [have] prevented us from sweeping the landmines in any province. This is a clear indication that the Houthis are the ones planting the landmines. If there was another side planting the landmines, the Houthis would request our help.”
Abdulqader Mubarak didn’t know that his mother died in the explosion. He believed that “my mother [is] right now still being treated in the next room as the doctor told me”.
The teenager hoped that the Yemeni government, with the help of the Saudi-led anti-Houthi coalition, would clear the landmines in Aden.
With tears running down his face, he said, “God will punish those criminals who planted the landmines in Aden”.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae