Al Mukalla: Hundreds of people have fled their homes in Yemen’s Al Khadah region in the southern province of Taiz where fighting has erupted between government forces and the Iran-backed Al Houthi militia.
Other families in Taiz were forced to leave their homes by Al Houthi militants, residents, aid workers and government officials told Gulf News.
Ahmad Al Basha, a local photographer from Taiz, visited one of the makeshift displacement camps in Al Maafer district where as many as 600 people had gathered.
They said they were left with no choice but to flee Al Khadah as they faced severe food and medicine shortages.
“Men, women and children walked several miles seeking safety, shelter and food,” Al Basha said.
During their continuing offensive to liberate the country’s western coast from Al Houthis, government forces liberated Al Khadah and other strategic locations near the Bab Al Mandab Strait last month, but rebels are now trying to recapture lost territory, triggering a massive exodus of residents.
“They shelter under ramshackle tents made of plastic bags and cartons. In the evening, women and children sleep in the tents while the men sleep outside on the rough grounds,” Al Basha said.
Local aid organisations are unable to send humanitarian aid due to a two-year-long siege by Al Houthi militia on Taiz which has greatly crippled their ability to help the growing number of displaced people.
“We are unable to help the displaced people because Al Houthis, who control the eastern, northern and southern entrances of the city, confiscate vehicles that carry aid to the city,” Ameen Al Haydari, executive director of the Humanitarian Relief Coalition, an alliance that includes international NGOs and independent activists, told Gulf News.
The rebels have imposed a siege on Yemen’s third largest city since early 2015 in an effort to weaken army troops and resistance fighters who control the city centre.
The siege has largely failed to defeat loyalists, but has crippled the city’s residents who face acute shortages of food and life-saving drugs.
In Al Houthi-held Jabal Habashy and Wazea districts, residents were forced into fleeing to safer areas in Taiz after rebels kicked them out of their homes in order to use them as a base to launch attacks on government forces, Al Haydari said.
Local health officials say displaced people in different areas of Taiz are in urgent need of proper shelter, health facilities, cooking tools and drugs.
“Some children are severely malnourished and the unhygienic conditions are a breeding ground for diseases,” Faris Al Arasi, a senior health official in Taiz, told Gulf News, adding: “We have no aid or money. We can only send in medical teams to check on them.”
Last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that some 48,000 Yemenis have been displaced in the current fighting along the country’s western coast since January, bringing the total number of displaced across Yemen to three million.
