Epidemic, Under-privileged & Inadequate Services [Archives:2001/31/Reportage]

Mansour Abu Ali
Hodeidah is the most fascinating and the most beautiful city on the western coast of the Red Sea. It is hot in Summer moderate in Winter. Perhaps the most distinct feature of this city is the sea, fish opulence and the brown faces. The city is a commercial and tourist spot but, unfortunately, the city lacks necessary services and clean streets. Although the city is very hot, electricity switches off every day and every quarter becomes very dark for about two hours. The majority of people in the city are poor and some of them go fishing. An eye-catching thing in the city is the motorbikes on which most people depends on their livelihood. Some of them practice begging professionally particularly those who come back from the neighboring countries. In Hodeidah, your wage or your salary is not enough to pay the water bill for only one month. They complain bitterly about the high increase of the electricity bills.
Education in Hodeidah
Education in Hodeidah is extremely low due to the following reasons: the huge number of students in one class without chairs or enough light. The main reason of the deteriorating education in the city is the corruption which penetrates into every school in the city. Middlemen seeking to sell students’ certificates and collecting donations from students. Learning is not every thing, money is their main target. Perhaps, university education is better than the general education. This can be attributed to the direct orientation to the competence of the teaching staff, the inauguration of new colleges in the city, such as Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Sea Sciences in which the people could find job opportunities. But the university students complain bitterly about the high increase of the university fees, the unavailability of libraries in the university.
sewerage
Another major problem in Hodeidah which distorts the beauty of the city and its fascination is the sewerage which scatter in each lane of the city. All sewerage flow into the western beaches of the sea. This is a big catastrophe which could affect and threaten the marine life and the investment of the fish. Not only this, but also it distorts the beauty of the beaches which in turn affects a lot on the internal tourism.
Rondom construction
In the absence of the General Works’ role in Hodeidah, the random constructions have remained the main feature of this city together with the digging streets here and there. In the other hand, there are no public parks or gardens. There is only one public park in the city, it is 13th June Park and now it is about to wither away. There is a glimmer of hope with the Local Council to retake care of the park, preparing for cleaning campaigns and taking interest in the beauty of the city.
Health
The city has suffered a lot from different diseases all the year around, such as malaria, typhoid and nephritic failure. Hundreds of the people die of these diseases. There is a clear testimony on the deterioration of the health services. Only pay a visit to Al-Olefy Hospital and you will see with your own eyes the deteriorating condition of the hospital. The hospital received daily thousands of patients and lack the simplest services and the first-aid. These are some of the problems of the city in many different aspects as education, health, reconstruction, sewerage and electricity. We present these problems to the PM and the Governor of the governorate to get better improvement in services.

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