Houthi rebels march during a mobilisation campaign in Sana’a on Thursday. (AP Photo)
The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) said 46,000 people had been displaced across the Taiz and Hodeidah governorates, with many families being forced to flee for a second or third time. One displaced Yemeni, Al-Megdad Hashem, said 34 people, including his family and elderly parents, crowded into a truck normally used to transport construction material after shelling wounded two people. More than 18 million people are facing acute food insecurity, while 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished, according to figures cited by the New York Times. The NYT reported that more than 17,600 measles cases had been recorded in Yemen in the first seven months of the year.
The Guardian reported that aid workers were struggling to keep pace with the rapidly changing situation, with civilians in need of emergency shelter, food, drinking water, healthcare and other assistance.
Entire villages have been emptied as Houthi forces, backed by Iran, seized a string of towns from forces aligned with the US- and Saudi-backed Yemeni government, according to The Guardian. “It was difficult to take anything,” he was quoted as saying by the NYT. “The scale of displacement is increasing rapidly,” Joe Lowry, an IOM spokesperson, said. Houthi forces this week captured the strategic port city of Mokha and an island in the waterway, according to Yemeni officials cited by the New York Times.
The moves give the Iran-backed group a foothold near the Bab al-Mandab, through which major energy and commercial shipments pass. The renewed fighting comes as Yemen was already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The crisis has been compounded by a shortage of humanitarian funding. The World Food Programme has suspended food aid in some areas and reduced monthly cash assistance, while Yemen’s healthcare system remains under severe pressure. At a hospital in the government-held city of Marib, maternity and obstetric services have also been suspended to make room for trauma patients.