The humanitarian situation in Yemen is catastrophic with every family affected by the conflict, global Committee of the Red Cross president Peter Maurer said on Tuesday.
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The latest loyalist gain came as seven pro-government activists were handed over in Yemen’s second city Aden as part of a prisoner swap overseen by the worldwide Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Elsewhere, military officials said the pro-rebel governor of the southeastern Shabwa province, Ali al-Awlaqi, fled to an unknown location on Monday as loyalist forces prepared to enter the province. The global group Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) says it has treated more than 10,000 war-wounded in Yemen since March and that aid groups are being overwhelmed by the country’s massive humanitarian needs.
However, the rebels still control the capital Sanaa which they seized last year, as well as large swathes of Yemen including the remote north where their mountain stronghold of Saada is located.
In April, they also managed to capture the southern Aden province, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi – along with most of his government – to flee to Saudi Arabia.
The local tribal fighters advanced into the central city, home to around 200,000 people, from two surrounding rural areas and set up checkpoints at its entrances.
Pro-government militia sources said clashes were ongoing in Taez, which would be a major prize if retaken by loyalist forces.
“The direct intervention in the battle, especially of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in addition to the cover from air, has completely shifted the balance of power… and revealed the other side’s weakness”, said analyst Ani.
The latest turnaround in the fighting coincided with the appearance on the battleground of modern equipment that, according to military sources, the Saudi-led coalition had provided to Hadi’s supporters.
UAE media Tuesday quoted Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash praising the “professional performance” of his country’s troops in Yemen.
“We will liberate the south”, said mechanical engineering student Alqadr Tawfiq, 22, who was returning on the plane with his wife and infant son. And it is getting worse by the day.
“The world needs to wake up to what is going on”, he added.
Warning against the deliberate starvation of civilians in war-torn Yemen, Hilal Elver, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, noted that nearly 13 million people in Yemen “are now surviving without adequate access to basic food supplies”.
Meanwhile, the UN warned that sieges by Houthi rebels and Saudi-led air attacks on markets and food trucks had exacerbated Yemen’s severe food crisis and may amount to severe crimes.
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“Additional facilities continue to close down week by week… leaving civilians without access to critical, life-saving health care”, it said.
