The raging battles in the city of Taiz, southwest of Yemen, forced the citizen Attia Mansour Saeed to flee with her children from the western countryside of the city, and to start an arduous journey of displacement, which ended in the Jabal Zaid camp for the displaced in the Al-Baireen area.

Today, the woman in her thirties lives in a dilapidated tent with five children, in squalid human conditions in an uninhabitable place.

Attia told Anadolu Agency, in a voice choked with tears: “I have neither a mother nor a father, my family has been scattered by displacement, and my children are living as orphans after I lost my husband in the war. We inherited the orphanage in this family…so that my sons drink from the same cup that I drank when I lost my father.”

Attia and her children’s suffering worsened with the advent of the winter season and the intensification of the cold, due to their lack of the means to help and protect them from frost, such as clothes and blankets, amid dilapidated tents.

“I spend most winter nights here without sleep, and I hear the screams of my five sons tugging on outdated blankets that don’t warm them,” she says, adding that she and those with her in the camp live a “denka life” (a very tiring life).

Although there are many civil, individual and collective initiatives to collect and mobilize donations of blankets and clothes to help the displaced, these efforts are not sufficient to include all the displacement camps that extend over most of the western countryside of Taiz.

Thus, the suffering of the displaced and their humanitarian conditions are exacerbated in the winter season, in addition to the increased need for food and medicine… with the spread of diseases caused by the cold.

** The elderly and children

With the advent of the winter season, Yemenis are facing a new and more deadly crisis of suffering for the elderly and children, especially those who were expelled by the war from their homes to displacement tents. Suffering is more concentrated on those who suffer from chronic diseases and have been kept away from medical care for their weakened bodies by war conditions.

Ahmed Ali Hassan, in his thirties, told Anadolu Agency: “We suffer from severe cold that has descended upon us, our children and the elderly in the camp this year.”

He added: “We have in the camp a large group of elderly people, suffering from chronic diseases and cannot resist the winter, especially since we do not have the simplest capabilities to face this season, and our tragic situation is the case of many, and it cannot bear any more waiting from the concerned authorities to save us.”

He said, “We hope that all concerned in international and local organizations… look at us with an eye of mercy.”

** Absence of international support

The entry of the winter season and the intensification of the cold represent a major challenge for international organizations working in Yemen, in light of the decrease in the amount of funding provided to the country, while the suffering of Yemenis is worsening day by day, especially the displaced.

Naseem Al-Adini, a humanitarian activist, told Anatolia that the international support for the displaced is insufficient, and in recent years it has been noticeably absent from the displacement camps, as the UN organizations focus on side projects in various fields, and neglect the important and necessary things for the displaced, especially in winter season”.

She points out that the need of the displaced is intensified in the winter, as “people who sleep on the ground and cover the sky in dilapidated tents need warmth first, food that helps them face the cold, and medicine that saves them from catching colds from children and women.”

In turn, Muhammad Murshid Muhammad, a displaced person in the camp in his fifties, said that the international support for winter clothes and blankets was cut off for them three years ago, and that the last organization to enter the camp was the International Organization for Migration, and the rains destroyed what was provided at the time.

And Mohammed appealed to the international community and workers in the charitable field to pay attention to them in this winter, which began strongly and early this year.

Earlier this month, the Executive Unit for the Management of IDPs Camps announced that the military escalation in Marib governorate had led to the displacement of more than 93,000 people; During last September and October.

In addition to the displacement of more than 40,000 people from the western coast areas of Hodeidah, as a result of the recent military escalation between the Houthis and the joint forces led by Brigadier General Tariq Saleh.

The ongoing conflict, attacks and human rights violations over the past six years have left an indelible impact on civilians. About 4 million of the total population were forced to leave their homes due to the war, after their homes were destroyed, and they lost their livelihoods.

For nearly 7 years, Yemen has been witnessing a war that has killed 233,000 people, and 80 percent of the population, numbering about 30 million, has become dependent on aid to survive, in the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations.

(Anatolia)