SANA’A, Yemen —
For more than
two weeks, Abdullah laid at home in al-Silw district, in Yemen’s besieged southwestern governorate of Taiz, as his body slowly failed.
The 58-year-old had lived with kidney failure for two years, and his doctor had prescribed dialysis twice a week.
Since the siege, however, the fighting stood between al-Eissi and the dialysis center in Taiz city that kept him alive. Al-Eissi wouldn’t let his family risk their lives to take him to the center.
“My father’s condition deteriorated badly,” said his son, Muadh, 38. “We couldn’t move him to Taiz because the fighting had intensified.”
About a week ago, al-Eissi died at home in his bed.
“When I saw my mother weeping for her husband, I felt helpless,” Muadh said. “It might have been avoided if my father had reached his dialysis sessions on time.”
Abdullah is one of at least 10 dialysis patients who have died since the siege on Taiz began because they could not reach treatment, according to Dr. Issam Mahyoub, director of the kidney dialysis center at al-Jumhuri Hospital in Taiz. Doctors warn that many more could follow.
“About 60 percent of kidney failure patients in Taiz face the risk of death because they cannot reach the dialysis center.”
“About 60 percent of kidney failure patients in Taiz face the risk of death because they cannot reach the dialysis center,” said Dr. Fouad al-Haddad, the hospital’s director. “Behind every number is a human being and a family living in anxiety, waiting for a chance to continue treatment that may never come.”
Ecocide in Iran
The kidney-failure deaths are part of the toll of a wider regional war set off by an
unprovoked
February
attack
against Iran
by Israel
and the United States. Estimates hold that 10,000 or more people have
died during the war
, including both military and
civilian deaths
across the region. Since the regional war reignited in Yemen this summer, according to the
World Health Organization
, at le
