ANSD : Arab-led coalition strikes Hudaida airport compound

THU 25 - 4 - 2024

Date: Jun 18, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Arab-led coalition strikes Hudaida airport compound

ADEN/AL-DURAIHMI, Yemen: Houthi forces fought to keep control of the airport in Yemen’s main port city of Hudaida Sunday as Arab-led coalition airstrikes struck the compound, in an offensive that could be a turning point in the 3-year-old conflict.

Losing Hudaida would deal a serious blow to the Iran-aligned Houthis, cutting supply lines from the Red Sea to their stronghold in the capital Sanaa.

It could also give an edge to the military alliance which, despite superior weaponry and firepower, has failed to defeat the Houthis in a war that has killed 10,000 people and created the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis.

“Coalition airplanes carried out more than 20 raids until now and shook the city,” resident Akram Yihya said by telephone. “We can clearly hear fighting and missiles landing in an area near the airport.”

The army claimed Saturday it had seized the defunct airport, which has been in Houthi hands since 2014. The rebels, however, denied the claim in a statement on their Saba news agency Sunday.

As air raids pounded Houthi fortifications in the airport, Houthi fighters blocked the main road from Hudaida to Sanaa with mounds of earth and chunks of asphalt to prevent coalition troops from advancing.“The airstrikes and missiles are shaking the city’s houses,” resident Khaled Sharaf said. People living near the airport said bullets were hitting their homes as fighting raged.

The battle for Hudaida could drag on, creating more suffering for civilians who have already endured airstrikes, port blockades, hunger and a cholera epidemic.

The Houthis, mountain fighters who seized Sanaa in 2014, gained valuable experience in a series of guerrilla wars with Yemen’s national army and a brief border war with Saudi Arabia.

Armed mostly with AK-47 assault rifles, they have advanced on sandal-shod feet and pickup trucks in battles across Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries.

That may give them an advantage in street-to-street combat as the fighting extends to the densely populated neighborhoods of Hudaida, a city home to around 600,000 people.

The shift of clashes toward these residential areas have caused aid distributions to be suspended in the west of the city.

At least 139 combatants have been killed since the launch of the operation Wednesday, according to medical and military sources, most of them rebels.

On a road overlooking the desert outside of Hudaida, Yemeni members of the coalition piled into pickup trucks, their cheeks bulging with the mild narcotic plant khat, to form a convoy.

Others walked past armored vehicles and took up positions in the sand.

One casually fired mortar bombs into the distance.

U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths arrived in rebel-held Sanaa Saturday for a second round of talks since taking the post in February.

The Houthis, who accuse the U.N. of bias, said there were major obstacles to any peace talks shortly after meeting Griffiths the next day.

Houthi representative Sharaf accused the Saudi-backed government of “obstructing negotiations,” saying the Hudaida offensive had foiled any potential peace talks, in a statement carried by the Saba news agency.

Griffiths, whose talks in Sanaa have been largely kept under wraps, is believed to be pressing the Houthis to cede control of the Red Sea port to a U.N.-supervised committee that would allow deliveries of commercial goods and aid to continue to flow.

The United Nations says the assault on Hudaida could trigger a famine imperiling millions of lives. Many residents are bracing for more hardship as the warring sides dig in.

Nearly 4,500 households have been displaced in Hudaida province so far this month, the U.N. said Sunday.

The meager income that Yehia Sohail generated with occasional work at Hudaida’s port could soon vanish.

“I take the money to cover the needs of one day and that’s it, it’s done,” he said, speaking outside his shack, built from corrugated metal, palm fronds and torn blankets.

“Now if the port closes, where will I go to work? When this siege comes and this disaster happens, where am I going to find work?”

His wife, Umm Ahmad, said the family had no cooking gas. A motorcycle, their only means of transportation, had broken down. Sometimes strong rains and wind batter their tiny home.

“I have a young daughter who’s exhausted and sick and we can’t get her medication or anything, only the necessary food. If a war happens, what are we going to do?” she said.

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