Hostilities between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government and fighters from the Ansar Allah movement—also known by the surname of its leaders, the Houthis— in southwestern Yemen have resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people in recent days and forced hundreds of families from their homes.
In this impoverished country, where the flames of war reignited in July against the backdrop of broader regional tensions, the rebels launched a new offensive last Thursday, with the apparent aim of advancing into areas surrounding the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
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The Houthis attacked airports in Saudi Arabia
Families fled over the weekend to escape the fighting; they found refuge in a camp for displaced persons in the Taiz area.
Agence France-Presse reporters saw internally displaced people arriving in the beds of pickup trucks, some carrying blankets and personal belongings, and begin setting up tents in an area with sparse vegetation, exposed to the sun and the stifling heat.
“We grabbed our children and left without even having time to put on our shoes,” said Raouda Hassan, a displaced person from Makbana, adding that they left behind livestock and personal belongings because of the fires.
“They were firing at us from everywhere; we were surrounded on all sides,” she explained.
“Trapped and hungry”
“Some were injured, others were killed; we saw them lying on the ground, but we couldn’t help anyone,” said Nima Saif, who fled from Jabal Habashi. “Now, we’re trapped here, hungry, with nothing to eat.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 1,790 households have been forced to flee since Friday due to “intense bombardments and fighting.”
The situation resulted in the hasty evacuation from the area of people who were already displaced—"large-scale secondary displacements."
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized on Friday that “we are deeply concerned about the ongoing military clashes,” warning of the “devastating consequences—political, economic, and security-related—for Yemen and its people.”
From Saturday at noon through Sunday morning alone, the fighting resulted in the deaths of more than 140 people.
Two officers from the forces loyal to the government reported 84 deaths among their ranks, mainly in rocket attacks, while four AFP sources within the Ansar Allah movement reported 57 dead rebels.
The intensity of hostilities has now subsided, according to an official from the internationally recognized government, based in Aden (in the south) and supported by neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Government troops “have managed to establish positions” less than 30 kilometers from the Red Sea coast, the official added. According to this source, the Houthis were nevertheless advancing west of Taiz as they moved toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
“A Path Toward Escalation”
The rebel movement’s offensive “wiped out much of what remained of Yemen’s fragile ceasefire,” Adam Baron of the Washington-based think tank New America told Agence France-Presse. “Things increasingly appear to be on a path toward escalation, with little chance of averting it.”
“If the Houthis have the opportunity to take full control of Bab al-Mandab, they won’t hesitate for a second,” summarized Faria al-Muslimi, a researcher at Chatham House in London.
The strait, which connects Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal, has taken on even greater significance following the outbreak of war in the Middle East and Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.
Yemen is among the countries involved in the regional armed conflict that began with the U.S.-Israeli bombings of Iran on February 28.
The ceasefire that had been in effect since 2022—even though it had technically expired—fell apart in July, when the Houthis rejected Riyadh’s air force control over Yemeni airspace.
Since then, the movement, which is aligned with the Islamic Republic, has stepped up attacks on military installations and areas controlled by forces aligned with the internationally recognized government.
They also announced the imposition of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, targeting oil tankers as well as oil facilities within the kingdom, particularly a refinery.
The war in Yemen, which escalated in 2014, has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and plunged the country—the poorest on the Arabian Peninsula—into a severe humanitarian crisis.
Source: APE-MPE
