At Yemeni prosthetics clinic, the patients keep coming even though the war has slowed

Shaimaa Ali Ahmed, 12, lost her leg at age 6 after happening upon an unexploded rocket. Yemeni children like her bear an outsized burden from the civil war, where land mines and ordnance litter the landscape. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

TAIZ, Yemen – Twelve-year-old Shaimaa Ali Ahmed waits patiently in the crammed waiting room of a prosthetics center in Taiz, Yemen, as children and soldiers with amputations squeeze by to get to their appointments. Shaimaa and her doctor struggle to find an empty spot at the center to get started on her physical therapy session.

The prosthetics center in the frontline city of Taiz sees hundreds of new patients each year, requiring a range of different types of limbs. (Claire Harbage/NPR)