Both his children were dying. Yemen’s crisis forced him to choose only one to save.
Each day seemed to bring Mohammed a new such indignity, a painful and impossible predicament
MOULIS, Yemen — The choice loomed over Mohammed Fulait Ahmed, burdening him with shame.
His children were starving, and now his two youngest were sick — their tiny bodies burning with fever, their emaciated chests straining for breath. Mohammed’s pockets were empty and a trip to the hospital, three hours away, would cost more than he had made in months.
Desperate for help, he begged a local businessman to lend him money. The man agreed to loan him around $50 — only enough to help pay for one child’s travel to town. The other would have to stay behind.
Each day seemed to bring Mohammed a new such indignity, a painful and impossible predicament.
Should he eat his share of what little food his family had, or fast to let each child take an extra bite?
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Should he go out looking for work he knew did not exist, or beg for khat, the narcotic leaf that many people chew in Yemen, and then try to resell it for a pittance?
Now he was being forced to choose between two children he loved, 9-month-old infants born from each of his two wives.
The boy, Ali, fell ill first, worsening slowly and then suddenly all at once. The day before, his eyes had shut and now they wouldn’t open. The girl, Reena, was getting weaker, but was still awake.
There was not much time to weigh his options. The sicker child, Mohammed decided, needed treatment first. So he and his wife Anisa bundled the boy up and began the strenuous walk down the hill to the valley below, where they hoped to find a ride into town.
In this valley in Hajjah province, where small stone houses dot the hillsides, many breadwinners like Mohammed, a short, rail-thin man, once worked as day laborers and khat farmers.
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But as fuel prices soared amid Yemen’s long civil war, the trucks that once showed up to take them to work started to disappear, men in the region recounted. Construction projects they worked on ground to a halt. There was intense competition for the few farming jobs, leaving many men without any source of income.
At the same time, food prices also shot up, and families were suddenly unable to buy staples such as rice and vegetables. In Hajjah province, the World Food Program has recorded a 25 percent increase in food prices this year.
Many women, suffering from severe hunger, said the conditions have made it nearly impossible for them to breastfeed their children.
Yemen’s hunger crisis is widespread with many people in Mohammed’s area now surviving on little more than boiled leaves.
