“Fighting in Hodeidah reaches residential streets”
YEMEN - 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.
Troops entered residential areas in eastern Hodeidah with the aim of ‘purging them of insurgents’, a pro-government military official said. 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 ten days of clashes in the city.
Hodeidah is a vital lifeline for people across impoverished war-torn Yemen, with the majority of imports and humanitarian aid entering through its port.
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. Aid groups have urged warring parties to keep the port open.
“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.
Progovernment 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. Fighters clashed around the Al-Waha (Oasis) resort, closing in on a civilian district located south of the hospital and north of Sanaa Road.
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.
Other rights groups believe the toll may be five times as high. The conflict has triggered what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 14 million Yemenis at risk of starvation.
(AFP)