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Fighting in Yemen city of Hodeidah 'reaches residential streets' Fighting in Yemen city of Hodeidah reaches residential streets
(about 4 hours later)
Fighting for control of Yemen’s rebel-held city of Hodeidah has reached residential streets, with Houthi insurgents mounting fierce resistance to government forces backed by Saudi Arabia, military sources said. Street battles raged in residential areas of Yemen’s main port city of Hodeidah, forcing medical staff to flee the largest hospital, as Houthi insurgents tried to repel forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition.
Troops entered residential areas in eastern Hodeidah with the aim of “purging them of insurgents”, a pro-government military official said. Residents said they saw the bodies of seven civilians killed in clashes in southern suburbs, with both sides using mortar shells, anti-aircraft guns and assault rifles in the fight for the Houthi-held city, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis.
Fears for the safety of civilians have been rising since loyalist forces renewed an operation to take the city, which has been under the control of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2014. More than 400 combatants have been killed in 10 days of clashes in the city. The coalition has renewed its offensive on Hodeidah as western allies, including the US, called for a ceasefire to support UN-led efforts to end the nearly four-year war that has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the country to the brink of starvation.
Hodeidah is a vital lifeline for people across impoverished war-torn Yemen, with the majority of imports and humanitarian aid entering through its port. Medical sources at al-Thawra hospital told Reuters that several staff members and patients able to move had fled the complex. It was not immediately clear how many patients remained inside.
The docks have been blockaded by the Saudi-led alliance since November 2017 over what the coalition says is arms smuggling from Iran to the Houthis. Tehran denies the charge. “The Houthis are reinforcing their positions near the hospital and that is what scared people,” said one staff member. Hospital spokesman Khaled Attiyah told Reuters that doctors and nurses continued their work in departments such as intensive care, the burns ward and the emergency room “despite the panic”.
Aid groups have urged warring parties to keep the port open. Last week, rights groups said the Houthis had raided the May 22 hospital in the city’s eastern suburbs and posted gunmen on the roof, endangering doctors and patients.
“We cannot predict what will happen in the future, but at the moment there are no problems,” said Yahya Sharafeddine, the port’s deputy director. The United Nations and aid groups have warned that a full-scale assault on Hodeidah, an entry point for 80% of the country’s food imports and relief supplies, could trigger a famine in the already impoverished Arabian peninsula state.
Pro-government fighters moved into the neighbourhood between the May 22 hospital the largest in Hodeidah and Sanaa Road, which links the port city to inland Yemen. “We hear loud shelling and they are using all kinds of weapons, it is terrifying,” said one resident, Abdullah Mohammed. “In the eastern suburbs, Apache helicopters are bombing Houthi positions all day long.”
Fighters clashed around the Al-Waha (Oasis) resort, closing in on a civilian district located south of the hospital and north of Sanaa Road. Grain mill seized
The World Health Organization estimates nearly 10,000 people have been killed since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government’s war against the Houthis, driving the insurgents from the Red Sea coastline but failing to retake Hodeidah. Pro-coalition forces took control on Saturday of Red Sea Mills, a grain facility south of the port that holds about 51,000 tonnes of wheat, a UN aid group said.
Other rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high. About 60 shells fell inside the compound since the clashes reached that area a few days ago but the silos and the grains were not touched,” said Ali Reza Qureshi, Yemen‘s deputy director for the World Food Programme (WFP).
The conflict has triggered what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation. “We hope production will resume in the coming next two weeks as we get 21,000 tonnes monthly from those mills. Otherwise we will have to import wheat flour,” he told Reuters.
The WFP said last week it planned to double its food assistance programme for Yemen, aiming to reach up to 14 million people “to avert mass starvation”.
The coalition has said that wresting control of Hodeidah would break the Houthis by cutting off their main supply line and force the group to the negotiating table to end the conflict, seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Iran.
The alliance, which relies on the west for arms and intelligence, intervened in Yemen‘s war in 2015 to restore the internationally recognised government ousted by the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement, which controls the most populated areas of Yemen including the capital Sana’a.
The UN special envoy Martin Griffiths has said he hopes to convene renewed peace talks by the end of the year after the last round of consultations collapsed in September.
The United Nations has no up-to-date estimate of the death toll in Yemen. It said in August 2016 that according to medical centres at least 10,000 people had been killed.
YemenYemen
Middle East and North AfricaMiddle East and North Africa
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
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