Yesterday, at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, a girl-child came into this world, and the world rejected her. She had no brain. Not in the poetic sense of innocence or purity, but anatomically, literally: anencephaly. No cerebrum. No future thought, no dreams, no memory to be made. A skull empty of purpose. She was full-term. Her mother carried her for nine long months, through burning nights and weeping mornings, through dust, grief, and sirens. And then, birth. But no life to save. Only silence. The doctors stood helpless, mocked by the limits of their hands.
I saw them, people of medicine, their skilled, sterile fingers trembling. Not from confusion, but from recognition. Teratogenic damage. Developmental failure. Genetic disfigurement, not by chance, but by war. Bombs struck not only buildings, but chromosomes. The weapons, steel, shiny, American, fell not just to destroy the present, but to corrupt the womb. To poison the idea of tomorrow.
What do we call this horror? Radiation? Dioxins? Depleted uranium? Invisible toxins that do not kill quickly, they wait. They embed, cross placental walls, and twist the neural tube. They disrupt life before it begins.
There are more cases. Miscarriages. Premature births. Malformed limbs. Cleft palates wider than sorrow. Spinal cords like broken scrolls. The doctors whisper now, this is no cluster. It’s a pattern. A Lancet study warns of up to 200,000 indirect victims, not from blast wounds, but from genetic harm passed down to generations unborn.
But the world is deaf. It counts the dead by explosions, not deformities. It tracks casualties by limbs lost, not genes shattered.
And here, beneath the rubble, the deepest wound is in the womb. I saw her yesterday. The mother. She didn’t cry. She only looked. Her arms were empty. She had carried a daughter with no brain. But the child had eyelashes. Fingers. And that’s the most terrible thing: that life tried. That the body obeyed. That, even in apocalypse, the cells kept building.
Somewhere, another child may be born marked by air their mother once breathed. And they won’t know why.
They say war ends. That ceasefires come. That healing is possible. But how can it end when it lives in cells? When the placenta becomes a battlefield? When biology becomes the archive of war?
This is not just a war of fire and steel. It’s a war against life. Against women. Against the act of birth itself.
I have seen death, bodies torn, lungs gasping under broken ribs. But never have I heard a silence as loud as when a mother delivers a child already condemned by the sky above her.
And so I write. Not to accuse. Not to weep. But to remember.
Because some weapons do not explode.
They incubate.
#GazaGenocide
@woye1 Now they have two options, come down to set up factory or sponsor bandits that'll mine and sell to them in exchange for small change and weapons.
I was in Paris this weekend for 3 days. Needless to say, Paris is a beautiful city with amazing shopping precincts, restaurants, cinemas, museums and many historical monuments for culturally-minded sightseers but here is something that I find appalling in the city. 1/5
Job Vacancy at the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime (UNODC)
Title: Project Coordinator (Prison Reform)
Level: P-3 (International Mid-level Professional)
Duty Station: Abuja, Nigeria🇳🇬
Deadline: 8 Nov 21
See Details: https://t.co/1gm0mkEwsX
Good luck!!
🇺🇳
Plateau comm of information Dan Manjang told BBC Hausa that the state govt has found a civil servant collecting the salary of more than 800 ghost workers.
When Boko Haram started, there was much sympathy by local communities traumatized by corruption and the excessive use of force by armed forces. Recruits believed in a new state where they would be protected and be given a liveable income and opportunities. Before long, power...
Almighty. Our final moments of this blessed month have been marred by what’s going on in #Palestine and #Gaza. We pray for their safety. May peace and calm be restored. May You alleviate their suffering and all those going through similar scenarios the world over. Aameen .
Diasporans or those far from their communities, here are some state-based costs I have found out today for rice Zakat al-Fitr and a 50kg sack of rice, if you prefer to donate to more households. Zakat al-Fitr is for less fortunate fasting Muslims to enjoy their Sallah/‘Eid...
Heart breaking news on #AlAqsaUnderAttack. May the Almighty safeguard the people of Palestine and the sacred Mosque. Keep them in your prayers in these last blessed nights #Ramadan . May justice and peace reign. Aameen
The pain has become almost too much hearing about the incessant attacks and cold-blooded murders of innocent people by terrorists across the North East and North West. Any more presidential “warnings” without effective systemic and operational change adds insult to injury.
You know yourself best in most cases. But the minute someone says something about you, you crumble. You start doubting yourself, you start questioning things. Don’t. This person hasn’t walked in your shoes. You should only be worrying about how the Almighty perceives you!