Port city under Saudi-led attack

Coalition launches major offensive to take key city in Yemen as crisis deepens

The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s exiled Government has launched a fierce assault on the crucial port city of Hodeida, the biggest offensive of the years-long war in the Arab world’s poorest nation for the main entry point for food in a country already on the brink of famine.

The attack on the Red Sea port aimed to drive out Iranian-aligned Shia rebels known as Houthis, who have held Hodeida since 2015, and break the civil war’s long stalemate. But it could set off a prolonged streetby-street battle that inflicts heavy casualties.

The fear is that a protracted fight could force a shutdown of Hodeida’s port at a time when a halt in aid risks tipping millions into starvation.

Some 70 per cent of Yemen’s food enters via the port, as well as the bulk of humanitarian aid and fuel supplies. Around two-thirds of the country’s population of 27 million relies on aid and 8.4m are already at risk of starving.

The assault, part of an operation dubbed “Golden Victory”, began with coalition airstrikes and shelling by naval ships, according to Saudiowned satellite news channels and state media.

Bombardment was heavy, with one aid official reporting 30 strikes in 30 minutes.

“Some civilians are entrapped, others forced from their homes,” said Jolien Veldwijk, the acting country director of the aid group Care International, which works in Hodeida. “We thought it could not get any worse, but unfortunately we were wrong.”

The initial battle plan appeared to involve a pincer movement.

Some 2000 troops who crossed the Red Sea from an Emirati naval base in the African nation of Eritrea were awaiting orders to move in from the west after Yemeni government forces seize Hodeida’s port, Yemeni security officials said.

Emirati forces with Yemeni government troops moved in from the south near Hodeida’s airport, while others sought to cut off Houthi supply lines to the east, the officials said.

Yemen’s exiled government “has exhausted all peaceful and political means to remove the Houthi militia from the port of Hodeida”, it said in a statement.

The United Arab Emirates’ staterun news agency said four Emirati soldiers were killed and the Houthirun Al Masirah satellite news channel claimed rebel forces hit a Saudi coalition ship near Hodeida with two missiles. The Saudi-led coalition did not immediately acknowledge the incident.

Forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled Government and fighters led by Emirati troops had neared Hodeida in recent days.

The port is about 150km southwest of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, which has been in Houthi hands since September 2014. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015.

The United Nations and other aid groups had already pulled their international staff from Hodeida ahead of the assault.

The port remained open, however. Several ships arrived in recent days, including oil tankers, and there was no word from the coalition or the UN to stop work, according to a senior port official.

Robert Mardini, the regional direc- tor for the Red Cross, said the push on Hodeida “is likely to exacerbate an already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Yemen”.

“The population has already been weakened to extreme levels,” he said.

David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee, called the offensive “an attack on the political and diplomatic process to bring peace to Yemen”.

He said the UN Security Council must act to secure a ceasefire before the people of Hodeida “suffer the same fate as those in Aleppo, Mosul or Raqqa”.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s civil war, which has displaced 2m others and helped spawn a cholera epidemic. Saudi-led airstrikes have killed large numbers of civilians and damaged vital infrastructure.

The UN says about 600,000 people live in and around Hodeida, and “as many as 250,000 people may lose everything — even their lives” in the assault.

Yemeni security officials said some were already fleeing the fighting.