JEDDAH: The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) on Sunday revealed it provided prosthetic limbs for 1,839 civilians mutilated during the war in Yemen in the past three years, at a total cost of $2.3 million.
Prior to April 2017, a medical center backed by KSRelief and based in the city of Marib had fitted prosthetic limbs for 305 patients, and trained 5 Yemeni teams on prosthetic affixation techniques and patient rehabilitation, at a cost of $546,848.
By February 2018, 306 more patients had been treated, and 6 further teams were trained, costing $440,000, and by December 2018, 612 more limbs had been fitted with over 600 old ones replaced across Marib and Aden, coming in at $1.25 million.
The center has gone to great lengths to ensure both convenience and efficiency for patients on waiting lists for prosthetics, including maintaining regular lines of communication with people still awaiting treatment. The training program, established to teach Yemeni medics how to attach prosthetics themselves, is vital for the sustainable future of the center.
Amputations performed on civilians have been a prominent feature of the vicious war in Yemen, with men and many women and children requiring assistance from KSRelief after suffering life-changing injuries from bombs and landmines.
The Saudi Project for Landmine Clearance (MASAM) in Yemen cleared more than 43,000 mines in the war-ravaged country as of Feb. 15, according to the figures released by KSRelief. About a million mines have been planted by the Iranian-backed Houthi militias in Yemen over the past three years, claiming the lives of more than 1,000 civilians.
Eye hospital
KSRelief has started the first phase of a project to operate and prepare the Makkah Eye Specialist Hospital in Yemen’s Marib province to serve 1.3 million patients from across the country.
Dr. Abdullah Saleh Al-Moallem, director of the health and environmental aid department at KSRelief, said it signed on Feb. 9 an agreement to prepare and operate a specialized center for ophthalmology and eye surgery in Marib, which will last three years and cost $2.97 million.
The project aims to treat eye injuries, raise awareness on eye health, and establish a package of services in Marib to support Yemen’s Health Ministry and citizens. The second phase of the project, which will last three years, will focus on receiving patients.
Since its establishment in May 2015, KSRelief has implemented 692 projects around the world.
In Yemen, 325 programs have been run by KSRelief in partnership with 80 UN, international and local nongovernmental organizations. An estimated 2.5 million Yemenis have benefited from medical services provided by KSRelief in 2018, the SPA said.
Saudi Arabia has given $84.7 billion in foreign aid to 79 countries between 1996 and 2018.
