Houthis take heavy losses after talks postponement
Seventy-three Houthi rebels have been killed in clashes in Yemen since UN-brokered peace talks were postponed on Saturday.
Hospital sources said 11 soldiers were also killed yesterday around Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.
In renewed military advances on Saturday, Yemen’s pro-government forces fought Houthi militias in and around the city.
Fierce clashes took place on the routes known as Kilo 10 and Kilo 16 when Coalition strikes targeted Houthi positions near the Nana juice factory and the Red Sea mills. Al Meleh mountain north of Hodeidah – used by the Houthis as an arms and ammunition depot – also came under fire, a military source in the Al Amalikah brigades told The National.
“Other raids targeted gatherings of Houthi fighters in Al Gabana military base to the north of the port city, while a raid targeted a Houthi patrol in Al Katheeb, north-west of Hodeidah,” he said.
Dozens of rebel fighters were killed and injured.
Residents of Hodeidah said they saw Houthi vehicles taking dead and injured fighters to the city’s Al Thawrah public hospital and other medical centres.
According to residents, all public hospitals and clinics were put on alert and ordered to be ready for large numbers of casualties.
Groups affiliated with the Al Amalikah brigades have been securing the movement of tens of families from the affected areas, said Aseel Al Sakladi, the director of the Al Amalikah media centre.
Sami Bari, a media activist from the district of Al Marawyah, east of Hodeidah, said Houthi fighters had told residents of the district to evacuate their homes and were using the vacated residences as military bases.
Amid the chaos of war, a local staff member of the International Organisation for Migration was recently abducted by unknown people.
Saba Al Moalimi told the UN had been working to ensure the employee’s safe return, but declined to give further details.
In the south of the country yesterday, Yemeni tribal leaders said a suspected US drone strike killed four alleged Al Qaeda militants, including a field leader.
The men said the operatives were killed when an unmanned aircraft targeted a group of Al Qaeda members in the Ahwar district, one of the group’s strongholds in the southern Abyan province.
Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi, a forum hosted by the UAE Journalists Association presented a list of findings by experts and representatives of civil community organisations on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
The symposium was organised in response to a UN report suggesting war crimes may have been committed by all parties in Yemen.
The report, said the team of experts, aimed to “contribute to [the] alleviation and the ending of the Yemeni civilians’ suffering, while holding those responsible accountable for their violations, regardless of their political and sectarian agendas, and the interests of individual countries and regional and international powers”.
The participants urged the UN to rectify a number of alleged mistakes found in the report, as well as their research methodology, including “ambiguous and questionable” testimonies.