THE humanitarian crisis in Yemen is often forgotten as other global crises arise, say ophthalmologists from the Anglican diocese of Cyprus & the Gulf, who have been working at a specialist eye clinic at Christ Church, Aden, since 2002.
An estimated 377,000 people have died and millions have been displaced as a consequence of the civil war that broke out in Yemen in 2014. Large-scale famine has been compounded by lack of access to healthcare, petrol, and potable water. A severe cholera outbreak has brought the already fragile health system to a collapse.
“As horrible as the situation in Gaza is — or Libya and Ukraine or Syria and others — the circumstances in Yemen also are deserving our attention and deserving our prayers,” the Ven. Paul Feheley, Middle East partnership officer for the US Episcopal Church, told the Episcopal News Service (ENS).
The Ras Morbat Eye Clinic is described as seeing a steady stream of patients, despite running on two hours of electricity a day and having intermittent phone and internet service. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees brings Somalians from the Kharaz refugee camp to Ras Morbat every Tuesday for ophthalmology services.
“It’s hard for the average American Christian to understand the level of positive impact something as seemingly small as a comprehensive eye clinic can have,” the Revd Bill Schwartz, a retired archdeacon of the diocese, told ENS.
A resolution passed by the Episcopal Church’s 2022 General Convention launched the campaign “Fund an Ophthalmologist at the Ras Morbat Clinic”. It called on the Office of Government Relations to support policies allowing “unobstructed access in the conflict areas for humanitarian and medical relief organisations and journalists”; and on the UN to “engage in every possible effort to relieve human suffering and find a political solution to the complex ongoing war in Yemen”.
Archdeacon Feheley is encouraging the writing of “notes of love and continual prayers” for Ras Morbat and Yemen to the diocese and its Bishop, the Rt Revd Sean Simple, to share with the Yemenis. “It seems like a very simple task that won’t make much of a difference, but believe me, it does,” he said.
“We can’t necessarily change the circumstances in Yemen, but we can at least tell its people that they’re not forgotten, and that makes a huge difference.”