Street Artist Paints Pains Yemeni Kids Suffer under Saudi Aggression

Yemeni Street artist Haifa Subay has painted a mural that shows a child holding his own leg in a bid to bring attention dire consequences of ongoing Saudi Arabia’s aggression against the neighboring nation.

The piece of art in the capital Sanaa, titled ‘Just a Leg,’ is part of Subay’s ‘Silent Victims’ campaign. “The artwork and the campaign in general are aimed at raising awareness of women and children’s issues and their suffering in the time of war,” she told RT’s Ruptly agency.

“‘Just a Leg’ is painted for victims, especially children. According to United Nations reports, 96 percent of the victims of individual mines that are planted in conflict zones in Yemen are children.”

The artwork is Subay’s sixth painting in the mural campaign. Other pieces have focused on the various consequences of an almost three-year military campaign by Saudi-led coalition- people who have disappeared, water shortages, the destruction of schools, displacement, and the exploitation of schools for military purposes.

“My message is one of peace. Women and children are the most affected by this war and no one cares about them. War is pointless, it has targeted everything in Yemen; there’s nothing left,” she told Reuters.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Nearly 14,000 Yemenis, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against the impoverished state. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war. The Saudi-led war has also triggered a worsening humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions across Yemen.

However, the allied forces of the Yemeni army and popular committees established by Ansarullah revolutionaries have been heroically confronting the aggression with all means, inflicting huge losses upon Saudi-led forces. Subay’s husband, Murad, is also a street artist and has been dubbed the Banksy of Yemen, or Arab Banksy. He believes that art can bring people together, even in the most horrible of circumstances.