DHAKA: Last month, Hani Mansour took his wife, who was expecting their first child, to the Republican Hospital in the city of Taiz.

After spending hours at the state-run hospital, Mansour’s wife gave birth. Mansour was overjoyed to hear the news, but was shocked when the doctor told him that his son needed to stay in an incubator because his lungs were not fully developed.

However, because of Yemen’s ongoing civil war in which the Houthi rebel group is besieging Taiz, the Republican Hospital has no oxygen cylinders, and its incubators do not work.

‘I tried to move my child to al-Hikma private hospital, but there were no oxygen cylinders there either, so my child died five hours after his birth,’ Mansour told Al Jazeera.

As the war in Yemen continues to rage, 37 of the 40 hospitals and medical institutions in Taiz, Yemen’s second city, have closed.

Only the Republican and al-Hikma hospitals have incubators, but because both hospitals usually lack oxygen supplies, the incubators do not work regularly.

BDST: 1443 HRS, FEB 02, 2016
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