Yemen coastal offensive driving mass displacement — Amnesty

ADEN: A Yemen government offensive backed by ground troops and warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition has displaced tens of thousands of people along the country’s western coast, Amnesty International said yesterday.

The rights group warned “the worst could be yet to come” after surveying civilians who made the perilous escape from front line towns south of Hodeida port, the focus of the offensive.

Saudi Arabia launched a coalition in Yemen on the side of the internationally recognised government in 2015, with the goal of rolling back the Iran-allied Huthi rebels.

The government offensive, backed by air power and ground troops, has been moving north along the Red Sea coast with the goal of seizing rebel-held Hodeida – the country’s largest port.

The United Nations says the offensive has displaced more than 100,000 people in the past six months, sending them fleeing to Aden and other governmentcontrolled areas in the south of the country.

The journey is a costly one amid wartime inflation, to the point that many are staying behind under bombardment, Amnesty said in its report.

“The vast majority of those Amnesty International spoke to said they could only fund the trip by selling precious belongings, such as wedding rings, property deeds and livestock.

“They paid to leave on private buses and trucks, forking out an average of 10,000 riyals (around 30 under the conversion rate used in Huthi-controlled territories) per person, a small fortune in the local economy, where the clashes had forced many to stop working,” it said.

Millions of Yemenis are living on the edge of famine in what the United Nations calls the world’s gravest humanitarian disaster. — AFP