Local Editor
In a camp for the displaced by war in Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah, the father of Mazen faced a painful choice.
Should the use the little money from selling his small land to treat Mazen who had fallen seriously ill and save his life or to buy food and save the lives of his 10-member family?
Six-year-old Mazen suffers from hydrocephalus and acute malnutrition as his stick-like legs are so wasting away that he could not walk any more.
Lying on a wooden bed in his family's hut in the Bani Hassan area of Abs district, Mazen keeps staring down at the sandy floor as if his swollen eyes could dig a hole for him to escape from the severe pain.
"In early 2015, just a few weeks after the war erupted, I took him to hospitals in the neighboring province of Hodeidah and then we travelled to the capital Sanaa, where a hospital charged me 13,000 U.S. dollars for treating my son," Ibrahim Kidysh, father of Mazen, told Xinhua.
"I do not have this large amount of money, so I went back with my son to our village to sell my agricultural land to try to make up the money... but the price was very low," he said.
Not far away from the hut of the family of Mazen, a small hospital provides some health services for the displaced and the residents of the villages.
"The fluid in the skull of Mazen is increasing night and day and he urgently needs life-saving surgery, which is not available here," Mohammed Saif, a doctor, told Xinhua.
Part of the northern areas of Hajjah Province, including the district of Abs, is under control of the Hadi forces, while the Houthi control much of the province.
Yemen has been wrecked in war since late 2014. A Saudi-led coalition launched a military aggression in 2015 against the Houthi revolutionaries to forcefully reinstate the resigned regime of Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The war, which has lasted more than five years, has killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, and displaced more than 3 million others.
The 10-member family of Mazen is merely one of the 1,200 displaced ones living in dire conditions in the northern part of Hajjah Province, according to local authorities in Abs.
Conflict has caused the collapse of Yemen's health and agricultural system, triggering what the United Nations describes as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The UN aid agencies estimate that more than 20 million Yemeni people are just a step away from starvation and nearly 80 percent of the population completely rely on international humanitarian aid for survival.
In July, UNICEF warned that the number of malnourished children in Yemen could rise to 2.4 million by the end of this year with a shortfall in humanitarian funding.
"We had lived safely in our home in Haradh district, but our life changed a few months after the arrival of the violent battles ... We left everything behind and ran for our lives," the father of Mazen lamented.
The mother said her son's disease emerged five years ago when he got an acute fever and they could not rush him to the hospital because of the raging battles around the village between the Houthis and Hadi loyalists.
"Since then I have noticed that the size of his head is increasing abnormally and his health is deteriorating," she told Xinhua.
Source: News Agencies
