ADEN: Arab coalition aircraft bombarded Houthi fighters holed up at the airport of Yemen’s main port Hodeidah on Monday as a senior alliance official said he hoped UN diplomacy could coax the Iran-aligned movement to cede the city to “save the population.”
There are fears that a prolonged battle for the city, where the Houthis are dug in to protect critical supply lines from the Red Sea to their bastion in the capital Sanaa, could aggravate what is already the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis.
The Western-backed Arab alliance launched an offensive on Hodeidah six days ago in order to turn the tables in a long- stalemated war that has compounded instability across the Middle East.
UAE forces are spearheading the Hodeidah offensive, now focused on the airport of the Red Sea city.
On Monday Apache helicopter gunships fired at Houthi snipers and other fighters positioned on the rooftops of schools and homes in the Manzar neighborhood abutting the airport compound, according to local residents.
Houthi forces had blocked roads to the airport, they said.
The Houthis’ Al-Masira television reported six coalition air strikes on the Duraihmi district in the vicinity of the port.
The upsurge in fighting has wounded dozens of civilians and prevented aid organizations from reaching parts of Hodeidah.
In Geneva, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein voiced concern the Arab offensive could cause “enormous civilian casualties and have a disastrous impact on life-saving aid to millions of people which comes through the port.”
A senior UAE official said the coalition was taking a measured approach to the battle to minimize risks to civilians and was allowing the Houthis an escape route inland to Sanaa.
In addition, 100 trucks of food aid were en route to Hodeidah on the road from coalition-controlled Aden and Mokha to the south, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told a news conference in Dubai.
“METHODICAL” OFFENSIVE
“We have planned diligently around the humanitarian challenge. Our approach is methodical, gradual, calibrated to squeeze, to make a point, to allow the Houthis to do the right thing, which is basically decide to withdraw unconditionally.”
The Houthis’ days in Hodeidah were numbered, he said, and they needed to “as much as possible save the population.”
He said the coalition was counting on Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, to “pull a rabbit out of a hat” and secure Houthi agreement to vacate Hodeidah.
Griffiths returned to Sanaa on Saturday for talks. Houthi authorities and the United Nations office in Sanaa said he would stay until Tuesday, after originally saying he would depart on Monday, hinting at possible progress in his discussions.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned on Monday that fresh military action would not resolve Yemen’s crisis.
“The crisis in Yemen should be resolved through political channels...A military approach will fail...Yemen’s stability and security is important for the Middle East,” Rouhani told Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani in a phone call.
The Houthis, who rule the most populous areas of Yemen, a chronically unstable nation of 30 million people, deny being puppets of Iran and say their revolt is against corruption and foreign invasion.
Gargash estimated the number of Houthi fighters in Hodeidah at between 2,000 to 3,000. “(They are) militia, non-descript, not in uniform, majority work in small groups, snipers, with heavy extensive use of anti-personnel and other mines.”
Gargash declined to reveal the size of coalition forces but said they enjoyed “numerical superiority.”
The Arab alliance has asserted that it can take Hodeidah quickly enough to avoid interrupting aid and that it would focus on capturing the airport and port and avoid street fighting.
STRONG HOUTHI HOLD ON HODEIDAH
But the coalition has not tried to capture such a heavily defended major city since entering the war, and humanitarian groups fear the battle for Hodeidah could drag out.
This would intensify the suffering of civilians who have already endured devastating air strikes, port blockades, hunger and a cholera epidemic.
Yehia Tanani said he and his family left Manzar three days ago and walked for 3 km (1.86 miles), hiding behind walls and under trees to avoid air strikes, before finding shelter at a fish farm.
“They told us that some humanitarian organizations are going to send buses but then they said no buses could come in or out. So we started walking on foot carrying our children, sitting every while for rest while the Apaches hovered above us. We were scared not knowing if we’d be shot or not,” he said.
“Now we’re in this school, no mattresses, no electricity, no water, no bathrooms, nothing. And we have children who need medicine, need food, need anything, but we don’t have anything,” he said, sitting on the floor of an empty classroom of a school being used to house those displaced by the fighting.
Children slept on the floor of empty classrooms while others sat forlornly in the courtyard, where a few items of clothing and blankets were draped over balconies and upturned desks.
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Arab coalition bombs Houthis around Hodeidah airport, urges them to withdraw
Arab coalition bombs Houthis around Hodeidah airport, urges them to withdraw
- Arab coalition aircraft bombards Houthi fighters holed up at the airport of Yemen’s main port Hodeidah
- UAE forces are spearheading the Hodeidah offensive, now focused on the airport of the Red Sea city
Basic services resume at Syrian camp housing Daesh families as government takes control
AL HOL: Basic services at a camp in northeast Syria holding thousands of women and children linked to Daesh group are returning to normal after government forces captured the facility from Kurdish fighters, a United Nations official said on Thursday.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, that had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Celine Schmitt, a spokesperson for the UN refugees agency told The Associated Press that the interruption of services occurred for two days during the fighting around the camp.
She said a UNHCR team visited the recaptured came to establish “very quickly the delivery of basic services, humanitarian services,” including access to health centers. Schmitt said that as of Jan. 23, they were able to deliver bread and water inside the camp.
Schmitt, speaking in Damascus, said the situation at Al-Hol camp has been calm and some humanitarian actors have also been distributing food parcels. She said that government has named a new administrator for the camp.
Camp residents moved to Iraq
At its peak after the defeat of Daesh in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of Daesh members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
The current population is about 24,000, including 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis. About 6,500 from other nationalities are held in a highly secured section of the camp, many of whom are Daesh supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
The US last month began transfering some of the 9,000 Daesh members from jails in northeast Syria to Iraq. Baghdad said it will prosecute the transfered detainees. But so far, no solution has been announced for Al-Hol camp and the similar Roj camp.
Amal Al-Hussein of the Syria Alyamama Foundation, a humanitarian group, told the AP that all the clinics in the camp’s medical facility are working 24 hours a day, adding that up to 150 children and 100 women are treated daily.
She added that over the past 10 days there have been five natural births in the camp while cesarean cases were referred to hospitals in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor or Al-Hol town.
She said that there are shortages of baby formula, diapers and adult diapers in the camp.
A resident of the camp for eight years, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns over the safety of her family, said there have been food shortages, while the worst thing is a lack of proper education for her children.
“We want clothes for the children, as well as canned food, vegetables and fruits,” she said, speaking inside a tent surrounded by three of her daughters, adding that the family has not had vegetables and fruits for a month because the items are too expensive for most of the camp residents.
‘Huge material challenges’
Mariam Al-Issa, from the northern Syrian town of Safira, said she wants to leave the camp along with her children so that thy can have proper education and eat good food.
“Because of the financial conditions we cannot live well,” she said. “The food basket includes lentils but the children don’t like to eat it any more.”
“The children crave everything,” Al-Issa said, adding that food at the camp should be improved from mostly bread and water. “It has been a month since we didn’t have a decent meal,” she said.
Thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have returned to their homes in recent years, but many only return to find destroyed homes and no jobs as most Syrians remain living in poverty as a result of the conflict that started in March 2011.
Schmitt said investment is needed to help people who return home to feel safe. “They need to get support in order to have a house, to be able to rebuild a house in order to have an income,” she said.
“Investments to respond and to overcome the huge material challenges people face when they return home,” she added.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, that had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Celine Schmitt, a spokesperson for the UN refugees agency told The Associated Press that the interruption of services occurred for two days during the fighting around the camp.
She said a UNHCR team visited the recaptured came to establish “very quickly the delivery of basic services, humanitarian services,” including access to health centers. Schmitt said that as of Jan. 23, they were able to deliver bread and water inside the camp.
Schmitt, speaking in Damascus, said the situation at Al-Hol camp has been calm and some humanitarian actors have also been distributing food parcels. She said that government has named a new administrator for the camp.
Camp residents moved to Iraq
At its peak after the defeat of Daesh in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of Daesh members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
The current population is about 24,000, including 14,500 Syrians and nearly 3,000 Iraqis. About 6,500 from other nationalities are held in a highly secured section of the camp, many of whom are Daesh supporters who came from around the world to join the extremist group.
The US last month began transfering some of the 9,000 Daesh members from jails in northeast Syria to Iraq. Baghdad said it will prosecute the transfered detainees. But so far, no solution has been announced for Al-Hol camp and the similar Roj camp.
Amal Al-Hussein of the Syria Alyamama Foundation, a humanitarian group, told the AP that all the clinics in the camp’s medical facility are working 24 hours a day, adding that up to 150 children and 100 women are treated daily.
She added that over the past 10 days there have been five natural births in the camp while cesarean cases were referred to hospitals in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor or Al-Hol town.
She said that there are shortages of baby formula, diapers and adult diapers in the camp.
A resident of the camp for eight years, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to concerns over the safety of her family, said there have been food shortages, while the worst thing is a lack of proper education for her children.
“We want clothes for the children, as well as canned food, vegetables and fruits,” she said, speaking inside a tent surrounded by three of her daughters, adding that the family has not had vegetables and fruits for a month because the items are too expensive for most of the camp residents.
‘Huge material challenges’
Mariam Al-Issa, from the northern Syrian town of Safira, said she wants to leave the camp along with her children so that thy can have proper education and eat good food.
“Because of the financial conditions we cannot live well,” she said. “The food basket includes lentils but the children don’t like to eat it any more.”
“The children crave everything,” Al-Issa said, adding that food at the camp should be improved from mostly bread and water. “It has been a month since we didn’t have a decent meal,” she said.
Thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have returned to their homes in recent years, but many only return to find destroyed homes and no jobs as most Syrians remain living in poverty as a result of the conflict that started in March 2011.
Schmitt said investment is needed to help people who return home to feel safe. “They need to get support in order to have a house, to be able to rebuild a house in order to have an income,” she said.
“Investments to respond and to overcome the huge material challenges people face when they return home,” she added.
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