Yemen’s gun culture puts children in harm’s way

It was a moment that changed her life forever.
Suad Al Masani, now 17, was standing on the roof of her family home in Bani Masan area, some 70km from Taez city, last winter when a stray bullet struck her left shoulder. The shot was fired from nearby farmland and severed vital nerves which left her disabled.
Her sister and mother, who were with her at that time, did not hear the gunshot and only realised she was hit when they saw her blood-soaked shoulder.
"When I saw my daughter bleeding, I bound her shoulder with my scarf and shouted to her father to take her to hospital," Suad’s mother Fatima told The National.
Suad had already passed out by then, she said. "We took Suad to Khalifa hospital in Al Turbah town, 10km from our house, and after more than an hour Suad regained consciousness and a doctor told us that she will never walk again."
Yemen is one of the most heavily armed countries in the world, with the second largest civilian firearms ownership exceeding one weapon for every two citizens, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007. There are between 40 to 60 million weapons circulating in Yemen, estimated the UN Security Council in 2015.
In Yemen, guns are frequently seen fired at weddings and celebrations, and used for hunting and defence. They are also a symbol of power, wealth and manhood.
Yemen and its gun laws
Yahia al Umaisi, a flagstones worker, considers guns and jambiya, the traditional curved daggers worn by nearly all Yemeni men, symbols of status, power, manhood and responsibility.
"Once my boy becomes a grown-up, I will buy him a jambiya and a gun. They are part of our tradition, which we have to cling to and respect. It is a tradition we inherited from our ancestors," Mr al Umaisi said.
Today, more than a year after the accident, Suad is confined to a wheelchair inside her home and has stopped attending school.
"I am tired of being in the house and I hope to go to school again, enjoy the view from the housetop and outside in the fields, but I can hardly move to the living room and I try not to bother my mother," she said.
After two months of investigation, police found that the alleged shooter was a 16-year-old boy also from the Bani Masan area of Taez province.
"One of our neighbour’s children said that on that day when Suad was shot, he [the accused] was trying to hunt a hare in a field near our house, and he was shooting wildly to hunt the hare, but instead he shot a girl," said her mother Fatima.
Fatima said that because he was a child, the family decided to forgive him. The boy’s family has been helping with the cost of Suad’s treatment.
Suad’s case is not unique. There have been several cases of stray bullets killing civilians at wedding parties in the past year, including a young girl who was shot in August. Manar Yasser Badhanwi was hit during a wedding in the Fowah area of Al Mukallah in Hadramawt province and died days later.
Yemen’s gun-control legislation has not been updated since 1992. The law banned the carrying of firearms in major cities but was never enforced until 2007. But the law does not designate which authority will ensure the control of arms proliferation.
Before the start of the war in 2015, the interior ministry seized weapons from civilians who did not have permission to own arms. Yemenis tried to avoid carrying weapons at that time, but that is no longer the case.
"Nowadays, there is no punishment for carrying weapons," said Naef Ibrahim, a social expert in the government education office in Taez.
"So many people are moving with their Kalashnikovs and this is the main reason for the increase in the number of victims of stray bullets. I think that the government has to revive the law of regulating the carrying of guns to decrease the casualties from stray bullets."
Parents must be held responsible for their children’s wrong ideas and behaviour about weapons, said Mr Ibrahim.
He stressed the need for parents to prevent their children from getting hold of weapons.
"There have to be education campaigns about the dangers of weapons for parents, not children, as parents consider this to be an aspect of manhood, and this is a wrong thinking that is from the past," he said.
An arms trader told The National on condition of anonymity that there are no obstacles for the arms trade these days. Anyone can own weapons if they want to, he said, adding that "many children come to sell and buy weapons from me and this has became a normal thing nowadays".

Source: The National