Injured by a Land Mine, 17-Year-Old Ibrahim Can Walk Again in Yemen
Ibrahim, 17, was tending his family's flock of sheep when he stepped on a landmine near Ibb City, Yemen.
"My sister was shouting, 'Ibrahim! Ibrahim!' I shouted 'I have no legs!' and she carried me," he recalls. "She took me home and then the people in my village took me to the hospital."
At the hospital in Ibb City, doctors operated. "After the operation, I woke up and I didn't see my legs," says Ibrahim." I was very sad and upset because I couldn't run and play with my friends."
Watch the video to learn more about Ibrahim's story:
At a UNICEF-supported prostheses and physiotherapy center in Aden, Ibrahim was fitted with artificial limbs. Physiotherapists helped him learn to walk again.
"When I came to this center, they gave me new legs," he says. "I am happy right now ... With these artificial limbs, I can walk by myself."
More than 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since fighting began in Yemen
Protracted civil war has made Yemen the most difficult place in the world to be a child. More than 10,000 children have been killed or maimed since the start of the conflict in March 2015. Four out of five children in Yemen — more than 11 million — need humanitarian assistance.
As the crisis deepens, UNICEF is providing landmine risk education for communities and psychosocial support and direct assistance for the most vulnerable children, including those who have survived war injuries. UNICEF is also treating children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, providing safe drinking water to more than 5 million people, training and deploying thousands of community health workers, and providing vaccines, formal and nonformal education and emergency cash transfers to protect children and their families.
To continue this lifesaving work in Yemen until mid-2022, UNICEF urgently needs $235 million. Please donate.
Learn more about how UNICEF is helping children in Yemen.
Top photo: Seventeen-year-old Ibrahim, right, lost his legs when a landmine exploded in a field where he was tending his family's flock of sheep near Ibb City, Yemen. He was fitted with artificial legs and learned to walk again at a UNICEF-supported prosthetic center in Aden. © UNICEF/UN0STO60051/Noman. Video edited by Tong Su for UNICEF USA.
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