At least 150,000 displaced by Yemen fighting
Saudi-led air campaign against rebels enters fourth week, death toll hits 750, UN says
CAIRO— Amid punishing hardships on the ground, at least 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict raging in Yemen, the United Nations said Friday, and the death toll has surpassed 750.
Dozens of schools, mosques, hospitals, airports, bridges and factories have been hit in a concerted Saudi Arabia-led campaign of bombardment that is now in its fourth week, the UN said.
The Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with the support of Washington, has taken aim at Iran-backed Shiite Muslim rebels known as Houthis. The insurgents last month drove the country’s internationally recognized president, Abderabbo Mansour Hadi, into exile.
The Saudi-led air campaign began after Hadi abandoned his last redoubt, the southern port city of Aden, which is now in ruins, pummeled by airstrikes and ravaged by close-quarters street fighting. Aid groups report overflowing morgues and growing shortages of everything from food to electricity. A few shipments of medical supplies have arrived, far outstripped by needs.
Meanwhile, a principal backer of the insurgents, deposed Yemeni strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, on Friday dismissed reports he intended to flee. Salah was forced from office in 2012, but retained the loyalty of many key military units, which defected to the Houthi side when the conflict erupted. The Saudi-owned pan-Arab TV channel Al Arabiya said Saleh loyalists in the ranks of the military and the Houthis had been hit hard by the airstrikes, and suggested that some key military defectors were returning to the government fold. It cited an unidentified Persian Gulf region official as saying Saleh had put out feelers about obtaining safe haven for himself and his family in an Arab capital or elsewhere.
On Facebook, Saleh denied any intention to leave Yemen.
“I’m not the kind of person who hunts for refuge” in Saudi Arabia or Europe, the one-time Saudi ally wrote. “My home is my country.”
The report of 150,000 people internally displaced, which was released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, doubled the world body’s previous estimates.
The death toll last month was almost certainly higher than the 767 reported, the agency said, painting a portrait of widespread suffering.
“Thousands . . . have now fled their homes,” said Johannes van der Klaauw, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. “Ordinary families are struggling to access health care, water, food and fuel.”
Power plants have been among the airstrike targets, OCHA said, and electrical output is faltering badly. Residents report spending hours each day in darkness, with access to clean water dwindling dramatically.
Ceasefire calls have come from parties including Iran and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon, but the Saudi military has said the campaign is putting crucial pressure on the Houthis, who last year surged out of their northern strongholds and overran the capital, Saana, seizing other large chunks of territory
UN-ordered arms embargo on the Houthis, imposed this week, can do little to address the huge stores of weaponry scattered at bases and arms depots across Yemen. Much of it was purchased with American funds, some earmarked to support the drone campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen franchise of the terror network.
Al Qaeda evicted government forces from a large weapons depot in the country’s east on Friday, seizing dozens of tanks, Katyusha rocket launchers and small arms, security officials said. The seized depot is in Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt — Yemen’s largest province where Al Qaeda has been consolidating its control. With files from Los Angeles Times