Sana’a: Army forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled president seized a border crossing with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, officials in the area and witnesses said, dealing a rare blow to the country’s dominant Al Houthi group.
Al Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army control three other crossings with the kingdom, which has led an anti-Al Houthi alliance in a three-month bombing campaign against the group to restore President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.
Eyewitnesses reported that thousands of Yemenis gathered there to flee the country after the Wadee’ah crossing in eastern Hadramout province changed hands amid heavy combat.
Fighting between Saudi and Al Houthi militiamen has closed all other entry points to impoverished Yemen’s neighbour, and one border facility has been destroyed in artillery exchanges.
A blockade of Yemen’s sea and air ports by the Arab coalition has created a humanitarian crisis in which food, fuel and medicine are scarce. More than 20 million Yemenis — 80 per cent of the population — need aid, according to the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia and its allies fear the Al Houthis are a proxy for Iran in the Arabian Peninsula.
Saba, the Al Houthi-run state news agency, quoted a military official as saying the border area had been taken by “a group of gunmen, Al Qaida militants and mercenaries”.
The chief-of-staff for the pro-Hadi forces, General Mohammad Ali Al Maqdeshi, said border staff were struggling to cope with the waves of refugees.
“There are thousands of people fleeing the hell of battles started by the militias against peaceful civilians which every day cause the number of those headed to the crossing to be even greater and resulted in a lack of services and overcrowding,” he wrote on his official Facebook page.
