Hunger Ward
MTV Documentary FilmsNominated for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 93rd Academy Awards, Hunger Ward is an incredibly difficult but necessary film to bear witness. The documentary follows two female healthcare workers in Yemen as they fight to prevent children from dying of starvation – a result of an ongoing proxy war. The famine in Yemen is one of the worst ongoing humanitarian crises and disproportionally affects children, yet due to politics and profit, it has become ignored and forgotten. Hunger Ward comes with a sense of urgency, asking the audience to have empathy for Yemenis and making them aware of their government’s complicity in the situation.
Clocking in at 40 minutes, Hunger Ward is split between two Therapeutic Feeding Centers, one in Yemen’s temporary capital Aden, and another at a rural clinic in North Yemen. The film opens with a bird eyes view of one rundown hospital, with voiceovers of news reporters recounting the conflict. Inside the hospital, things aren’t any better. It is sparse and lacking medical equipment and supplies. Family members of the starved sit solemnly in chairs or on the floor as they wait for hopeful news from the doctors. Children, nothing but bones, are weighed in plastic buckets and measured against pieces of wood.
Inside Sadaaqa Hospital in Aden, the film introduces Dr. Aida Alsadeeq, who supervises the pediatric malnutrition ward. She shows the nurses and mothers how to feed and give their children medication. She explains to the camera that all the children are suffering from malnutrition, she is stoic but there is sadness in her eyes. Within the first 10 minutes of the film, the audience already sees two babies die, just a drop in the 10 million Yemeni children suffering from starvation. A grandmother berates Dr. Alsadeeq and blames her for her grandchild’s passing. Aslam Clinic is the other focus on Hunger Ward, it is the largest in a network of rural malnutrition clinics in North Yemen. Nurse Mekkia Mahdi does similar work as Dr. Alsadeeq, administering medication and speaking with parents. In one heartbreaking conversation, Nurse Mahdi asks a father how he can afford to feed his children and he simply admits that he can’t. In another scene, Nurse Mahdi shows the camera photos of malnourished children who did not survive.
Despite the pain and loss, healthcare workers and parents strive to make the children happy. When Nurse Mahdi is placing an IV she reassures the child that “it’s just like getting henna.” The children play with balloons and the doctors and nurses always ask the children for just one smile. These are the scenes that make Hunger Ward so devastating. Fitzgerald does not back away from showing anything, it borders on exploitative but it is necessary to show how terrible the suffering of the Yemeni people is in actuality. While the audience witnesses so many children suffer and die, Hunger Ward centers on two beautiful little girls, Omeima and Abeer, who start to get better.
There is hope within Hunger Ward but only if the situation in Yemen changes. If children in Yemen are not lost to bombing, they are lost to starvation, and Hunger Ward shows how unacceptable the situation is. The focus of the documentary is on the Yemeni children and it does not explore why the famine in Yemen came to be, but it does point fingers at those who are complicit in the situation, countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. A basic explanation of the crisis in Yemen stems from the Arab Spring uprising which led Houthi rebels to take over much of the country. Saudi Arabia believed the rebels to be backed by Iran and launched an air campaign to defeat the Houthis and put President Hadi back in power. While this air campaign was believed to end in days, it has actually resulted in a stalemate and caused a blockade against Yemen, which struggles to get food and medical supplies to its citizens, while also dealing with bombings and famine. Yemen was already the poorest of the Gulf countries and now it is suffering even more. Hunger Ward names these countries as complicit because they supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, intelligence, and operational support.
Hunger Ward is a powerful documentary that hopes to create empathy for those dealing with and suffering from the crisis in Yemen. Fitzgerald states that he believes viewing Hunger Ward “will ultimately strengthen the call for legislative reform surrounding U.S. military assistance to the Middle East.” Documenting such conflicts, while heartbreaking, is essential, and Hunger Ward succeeds in its messaging and hopefully will help create a wave of change. Anyone living in these countries needs to watch this documentary because it is their tax dollars that are helping fuel the crisis.