In 2015, then-teenager Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer were convicted in Indonesia of hatching a plan to kill her mother, Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack, who had been vacationing at a hotel on the island of Bali. She faces an additional 28 years in prison in the United States when she is sentenced in December. "The issue of water scarcity is going to continue even if Yemen were to return to peace tomorrow," he said. "This doesn't only put Yemenis on the ground in extreme water insecurity but also food insecurity as the majority of the water goes to agriculture."Įven if Yemen's conflict is resolved, water shortages will persist, Wehbe said. "The water crisis in Yemen does not only include diminishing availability, but also poor quality, accessibility and affordability," she told AFP. Rising sea levels and flash floods make groundwater salty and introduce pollution including sewage, according to Maha Al-Salehi, a researcher with Yemeni environmental consultancy firm Holm Akhdar. The University of Notre Dame's Global Adaptation Initiative ranks Yemen as one of the region's most climate-vulnerable countries. "They are forced to go to distribution points instead to get their share of water." "The children are not going to school," he told AFP. "Many areas in Taez, around 60 percent of the city, have not received a drop of water since the start of the war."Ĭhildren are bearing the brunt of the crisis, Abdulwahid said. "Water availability in Taez is around 0.7 litres per person per day," he said. Samir Abdulwahid, the director of Taez's water authority, said the city is currently fed by 21 water wells as opposed to 90 before the war, blaming the Huthi siege. The search for water has become part of daily life in the city, where young boys and girls can often be seen lugging containers nearly half their height, and once filled, very heavy for a child to carry back home. In April 2022, local media reported a deadly accident in Taez when a water truck ran over women and children waiting to collect water. AFP could not independently verify the footage. Last month, a video circulating on social media purported to show a girl stabbed to death by her neighbor in the capital Sanaa over access to a water tank. "This is a tragic consequence of the water crisis."Īnd the scarcity of water can have extreme repercussions. instead of going to school," he told AFP from Sanaa. "They are forced to spend hours collecting water for their families. With water in such short supply, many parents need the help of their children in obtaining it. "Children are particularly vulnerable," said Wehbe, the deputy head of the ICRC's delegation in Yemen. The country's piped water network reaches less than 30 percent of Yemenis, forcing millions to rely on private companies or unsafe wells, said Ralph Wehbe of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Yemen's third-biggest city suffers from some of the worst shortages in a country where about 14.5 million people - nearly half of the population - do not have access to safe drinking water, according to the FAO. The family fled fighting in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah to move to Taez, a government holdout that has been surrounded and besieged by the Huthis for years. it's a competition," the 35-year-old said, as her children filled containers at the public tank, one of several around the city. "Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. "We wake up every morning and race after water," said Mohammad's mother, Umm Mujahid. Yemen's groundwater is being depleted at twice the rate it is being replenished, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).Īt the current rates, the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country could completely run out of groundwater within 20 years, the FAO says. The dire mix of war and climate change has only aggravated the country's water woes.įighting has ravaged critical infrastructure while rising temperatures and varying precipitation have further hit supply, experts and aid groups say. The teenager's plight is common in Yemen, which had ranked among the world's most water-stressed countries even before conflict broke out in 2015 between Iran-backed Huthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition supporting the ousted government. "We wake up in the early morning and leave home with our father, sometimes even at night, to collect water," he said. "My arms and my back hurt from the load I carry every day," Mohammad told AFP from the family's makeshift apartment, a former grocery store, in the city of Taez.
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