Three-year-old Hayat’s name means life, yet she almost lost hers when her family’s home in Yemen was bombed on 24 September. Her sister Dunia was killed and Hayat’s foot was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated.

“Catastrophic” humanitarian situation

The sisters are casualties of Yemen’s nine-month-old civil war, which has plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis.

“The overall humanitarian situation in Yemen is nothing short of catastrophic. On average, you have 25 people killed in Yemen every day and another 125 are injured,” says Rima Kamal of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“The civilian population is suffering on multiple fronts. You have on-going air strikes, heavy ground fighting and then, on top of that, restrictions on the movement of goods and services,” she adds. Eight out of ten people in Yemen need humanitarian relief.

“Fetch a foot for me?”

After her foot was amputated, Hayat began wondering why she couldn’t walk like other children and asked her father to fetch a foot for her from the market.

Instead, her parents took her on a two-hour journey to a physical rehabilitation centre supported by the Red Cross in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital.

Hayat is fitted for a prosthetic leg at the Red Cross rehabilitation center © Mohammed Abdullah/ICRC

Hayat was at first apprehensive when being measured for a prosthetic leg in the strange, noisy place. But when she got her new leg two days later, she was all smiles and insisted that she could walk by herself.

Hayat walks by herself for the first time © Yeyha Arhab/ICRC

Hospitals under siege

Hospitals are among the many damaged buildings in Yemen ©ICRC

As she grows, Hayat will need a new prosthetic leg each year. However, since the conflict began, hospitals and medical facilities similar to the one that helped Hayat are disproportionately under attack.

“There were 100 attacks on hospitals and health care facilities since March,” says Rima Kamal. “Hospitals are no longer the safe places they used to be. We have incidents where both patients and hospital staff have been killed and injured.”

Yemeni people like Hayat need your support

People like Hayat will continue to need support © Yeyha Arhab/ICRC

With a UN-sponsored ceasefire having been negotiated this week, there is renewed focus on the need for a political settlement. However, the country’s people and its battered healthcare system will continue to need support.

You can help by supporting our Yemen Crisis Appeal. Since March the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement has have provided 2.2 million people in Yemen with food, water and health care. A donation will help our partners reach those, like Hayat, who urgently need humanitarian aid.