As a consequence to the popular movement initiated against the government in Yemen, there have been an increasing number of civilian deaths and many heavy wounded people need urgent medical care. In this country we have been witnessing the longest process within the “Arab Spring”. Indeed, launched at the end of January 2011, the popular movement protesting against Saleh’s government is about to come to a conclusion after one year of ongoing demonstrations. So far this internal conflict has caused approximately 1200 deaths and around 3000 civilians have been severely injured.
At Doctors Worldwide Turkey, we did not “discover” Yemen when it finally attracted the media attention few weeks ago. Actually, struck by the terrible health indicators of this country, we decided to implement a project in Yemen at beginning of January 2011 but unfortunately the latterhad to be postponed because of the internal conflict that started few weeks later.
The project was born on January 2011 when DWW sent a six-people team to carry on a need assessment and decided to cooperate with a local partner: Al- Eslah Welfare Society. Following this exploratory mission, DWW opted for the implementation of three different projects in the region of Hardamutin order to increase the capacity of rural health infrastructure. The projects were launched but unfortunately they were interrupted because of the political instability.