The World Humanitarian Day is celebrated every year on Aug. 19, to shed light on the hundreds of thousands of volunteers and professionals, who provide people affected by crises with urgent health care, shelter, food, water, and more.
The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) has completed 2,400 projects benefiting 92 countries, in cooperation with 175 partners, at a total cost of $6.2 billion.
The center continues its relief and development projects in Yemen since its inception in 2015. Mohammed al-Maqrami, media director of the Coalition of Humanitarian Relief, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Yemen’s share from the center’s humanitarian assistance amounts to around 80 percent, including 814 projects at a cost exceeding $4 billion.
According to Maqrami, projects cover various fields of food and health security, treatment of the wounded, water, environmental sanitation, nutrition, and relief for the displaced, as well as rehabilitation of child soldiers, and Project Masam, a humanitarian landmine clearance project that started in 2018.
- Rehabilitation of child soldiers
KSRelief implements a project to rehabilitate child soldiers and those affected by the armed conflict in Yemen. It is a qualitative Saudi humanitarian plan that was launched in the Maarib Governorate in September 2017. It focuses on rehabilitating child soldiers and those affected by the armed conflict, reintegrating them into their normal lives and providing them with social support.
- Masam Project
Masam is a humanitarian landmine clearance project in Yemen, which was launched by Saudi Arabia in June 2018. Mines are spread in large quantities in Yemen, and have claimed the lives of thousands of children, women, and the elderly, causing permanent disabilities and economic losses for individuals and society.
The project aims to clear the Yemeni regions of landmines, address direct threats to the lives of the people, enhance security, and help addressing human tragedies resulting from the spread of mines, in addition to establishing a mechanism for the Yemeni society that enables it to assume responsibility in the long term.
Maqrami said that the project contributed to the clearance of more than 410,701 mines of different types, which were planted by the Houthi militia in various Yemeni governorates.
The work of the KSRelief is not limited to the relief aspects, but focus has also been placed on development projects. The center launched plans to rehabilitate schools in a number of Yemeni governorates, finance farmers and fishermen, and empower women and youth by educating them and teaching them crafts to enable them to support their families.
- Prosthetics Program
KSRelief took the initiative to support and fund prosthetics centers in Yemen, which provide free services to people with amputations. Mines planted indiscriminately by the Houthi militias affected the lives of thousands of Yemenis.
Around 26,080 persons benefitted from this program, including 25,340 in Yemen and 748 in Syria.
The program aims to provide high-quality prostheses for the injured, train local cadres on prosthetics manufacturing techniques, and build the capacity of health institutions to ensure localization and sustainability of services, in addition to rehabilitating patients.
