Mokhtar Campaign- Help NEEDED!

MOKHTAR CAMPAIGN. PLEASE HELP

by Yemen Insight on Monday, June 6, 2011 at 8:03am

Five Yemeni rials per empty plastic bottle. Taking a short break from his daily job as a bottle collector, 12-year-old Mokhtar was sitting before a newstand and leafing through a magazine.

A random bullet in the midst of the conflict between Yemen's most powerful tribe and government security forces in the Hassaba section of Sana'a struck Mokhtar's dorsal spine. As a result, he is now lying in a hospital bed, paralyzed and with little hope for his future. Needless to say, he will never pick up another discarded plastic bottle again.

He is not old enough to carry a gun. He has played no part in the revolution demanding justice, freedom, and the fall of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime. Mokhtar is just a little boy like so many others in Yemen who live on less than a dollar a day.

Forgotten in the midst of the headlines that currently blaze across Yemen and that make their way into international news programs are stories such as these. Mokhtar is one boy, one story lost among many, but he needs help if he is to have any future at all.

The basic medical resources needed to give hope to Mokhtar are not available in Yemen. He needs help, he needs it from outside his country, and he needs it now.