2/2
The darkness receded from the rubble, revealing the devastation left by the airstrikes on the wedding celebration. Morning had arrived, but not to Samih’s heart. The child was still beside his father. Still holding his hand. Still waiting. He no longer called him as he did at the start of the night. Maybe his voice was tired, or maybe the heavy truth had begun to seep into his small heart, or maybe he was waiting in silence for something he could not understand through all those hours. His father’s hand was still, and Samih’s small hand wrapped around it with determination. Somewhere far away, perhaps the European child woke up, found his father beside him, smiled reassured, and got up to a new day. But Samih—the world around him woke up to the story of a Yemeni child who did not let go of his father’s hand until morning. A child who was not just afraid of sleeping alone, but suddenly found himself in a world where his father was gone forever. On Sunday evening, April 22, 2018, airstrikes by the Saudi aggression targeted a wedding celebration in the Raqa area, Bani Qais district, Hajjah governorate, leaving more than ninety dead and wounded in that tragedy. But numbers do not tell the whole story. They do not tell how many times Samih called his father. Nor how many hours he waited for him to open his eyes. Nor how a small hand could hold on to so much hope, while the hypocritical world remained silent about his tragedy and the tragedies of Yemen’s children in the time of the abhorrent Saudi aggression.

#Saudi_crimes_in_Yemen
#Murad_Shali