Arab alliance close to capturing Hodeidah
ADEN: Forces from an Arab alliance entered the airport in Yemen’s main port city of Hodeidah yesterday, the coalitionbacked Yemeni military said, in the biggest offensive in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.
Victory for the Saudi-led alliance in their first attempt to capture a strategic part of a well-defended city could put the Houthis in their weakest position in the three-year conflict, since Hodeidah is the group’s sole Red Sea port.
A defeat could also cut off supply lines to the Houthicontrolled capital, Sanaa, and possibly force them to negotiate as the world’s biggest humanitarian disaster ravages Yemen.
“Army forces backed by the resistance and the Arab alliance freed Hodeidah international airport from the grip of the Houthi militia,” the media office of the pro-alliance Yemeni military said on Twitter yesterday.
Ground troops – which include United Arab Emirates forces, Sudanese and Yemenis drawn from various factions – have surrounded the main airport compound but have not seized it, a Yemeni military source and residents said.
Fighting in the airport area led to the closure of the northern entrance of the western city Hodeidah, which leads to Sanaa, residents said.
That has blocked a key exit out of the city and made it more difficult to transport goods from the port, the country’s largest, to mountainous regions.
Aly Omar said he and his family spent three days trapped in the Manzar neighbourhood abutting the airport as fighting raged all around them.
“We didn’t have any food, or drink or anything, not even water,” Omar said, standing in a hospital on Friday night beside his son, who was wounded by an air strike.
“I treated him on a bus after he was injured in an air strike, which is unacceptable. I call on the United Nations and the Red Cross to open a way for us to get out of the situation we’re in. Our kids, women and elderly are stuck ...”
Samy Mansour, head of the emergency room at Al-Thawra Hospital, received two dead and 12 wounded.
“We’re still treating people on the scene and transporting them to the hospital,” he said
If the Hodeidah fighting drags on, causing big coalition casualties and an outcry over a humanitarian catastrophe, it may work in the Houthis’ favour. If the Houthis are pushed out, the coalition could get the upper hand in the war.
The United Nations, which failed to find a diplomatic solution to head off the assault, fears the fighting will cut off the only lifeline for most Yemenis.
The offensive in Hodeidah could trigger a famine imperilling millions of lives, the UN has warned. Around 22 million people in Yemen depend on the humanitarian aid efforts, with 8.4 million at risk of starvation.
The UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is due to arrive in Sanaa on Saturday.
We didn’t have any food, or drink or anything, not even water.
— Aly Omar, resident