AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: At least 32 Yemeni civilians have been killed and 42 others injured by land mines planted by Houthis since the start of the year, according to Yemeni Landmine Records — a group that tracks civilian land mine fatalities in the country.
The group said it had recorded 41 explosions caused by land mines, ordnance, or other explosive devices that had killed 32 civilians — including 14 children and a woman — and wounded 42 others including 15 children and a woman in January.
Civilian casualties due to land mines have increased despite the cessation of hostilities during the truce brokered by the United Nations in April, it added.
Hodeidah was the province with the highest number of civilians killed by land mines, with 18 deaths including eight children and a woman, and 20 injuries, including 11 children.
Next on the list were Jouf, Marib, Saada, and Hajjah.
“The intensity of military activities has diminished over the last several months, but mines and other war leftovers continue to kill and harm people. They have aggravated misery and hindered the return of some displaced families to their homes and farmers to their jobs,” Fares Al-Hemyari, Yemeni Landmine Records’ executive manager, said in a statement.
Al-Hemyari’s organization is one of many local and international rights groups to say that thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed or injured since the beginning of the Iran-backed Houthis’ expansion across the country following their military seizure in late 2014.
They accuse the Houthis of randomly planting land mines in former battlefields and refusing to hand over maps indicating where those land mines are located.
The most recent verified victims of Houthi land mines were two children: Khalil Yahiya, 12, and Saber Mohammed, 15, from the city of Hodeidah, according to Yemeni Landmine Records. The group also reported that 14 Yemeni civilians had been killed or wounded in Jouf, Hodeidah, Saada, Hajjah, and Lahj in the 48 hours before its announcement.
The Saudi-funded Project Masam — a demining program in Yemen — has reported that the Houthis have transformed Yemen into the largest land mine field in the world by planting tens of thousands of the devices.
Masam said its field deminers removed 4,615 land mines, unexploded ordnance, and other devices from approximately 968,000 square meters of ground in January, bringing the total number of defused land mines and other explosive devices to 384,220 from 43,612,000 square meters of Yemeni soil since the project was launched in 2018.
Yemeni deminers say that the majority of recent civilian deaths in the province of Hodeidah happened in regions held by the Houthis.
Salem Hemaid, head of Masam’s demining team, told Arab News on Saturday that they are racing against time to avoid human casualties and enable displaced residents to return home.
“The absence of maps, vast swaths of contaminated ground, and the indiscriminate placement of land mines are our greatest obstacles,” Hemaid said, adding that the Houthis had laid land mines in numerous Hodeidah districts abandoned by the Yemeni government’s Joint Forces in late 2021.
Hemaid’s crew removed over 25,000 land mines in 2022 in 16 communities in Hodeidah, he said.
“The Houthis thoroughly mined the shoreline, as well as the locations and barricades from which the Joint Forces withdrew so that if they returned they would be blown up by the mines,” Hemaid said.
Houthi land mines killed 32 Yemenis this year
https://arab.news/267kr
Houthi land mines killed 32 Yemenis this year
- Civilian casualties due to land mines have increased despite the cessation of hostilities during the truce brokered by the United Nations in April
- Hodeidah was the province with the highest number of civilians killed by land mines, with 18 deaths including eight children
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
