Sash Kumar, a native of Oachira in Kollam, betrays little emotion as he recounts his terrifying dash through Yemen with a pregnant wife, dodging bullets and shells to reach the port and flee Yemen on an Indian vessel.
“We attempted to leave the country even as the war intensified and hence came to my sister Susha Rani’s house in Sana’a. However, air traffic was closed by then and we were almost trapped,” said Mr. Kumar, father of Parvathi, the youngest Indian to be rescued from the strife-torn country.
For a couple of days, they had been forced to wait as gunfire and explosions rattled around them, never knowing whether the next shell would have their names on it. His twelve years in the country, working as an electrician in an oil company, came to an abrupt end when the Houthi militia descended on Amran, the place of living, in the second half of March. “We had no other option but to flee as Raji, my wife, was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. That was too horrible a journey for us as there was heavy exchange of fire and I really don’t know how we managed to reach this far,” he said.
In the meantime, Raji, who had been working as a nurse, gave birth to a baby girl, Parvathy, who was then airlifted in an incubator to Kochi on April 10. Mr. Kumar, however, was denied permission to board the flight with them for want of travel documents.
Later, he left Djibouti to Hodeidah port in Yemen and embarked the ship m.v. Corals. “Now that I’ve reached here safely, my first priority is to go and see my kid, who has been hospitalised here. Everything else comes after that,” he said.
Parvathi, who was diagnosed with newborn jaundice, has been admitted to the Amrita Hospital in Kochi along with Raji. According to their relatives, the condition of both the kid and mother is now stable.
