Fighting rages in Yemen’s Taiz as UN warns nearly 260,000 now displaced

Fighting has intensified in Yemen’s Taiz province between forces loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis, as the United Nations warns that thousands of civilians are being uprooted.

Government forces spokesperson Majid al-Nazili said on Wednesday that they launched 835 targeting operations against the Houthis, known as Ansar Allah, killing or injuring 285 of the armed group’s members and destroying its battle tanks and weapons stores.

He said intense clashes also took place in the strategic highlands of Jabal Han in western Taiz, which overlook areas connecting the province to the Yemeni government’s Aden base. Heavy fighting was reported in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.

A source in the Yemeni government’s military told Al Jazeera that its air raids had struck Houthi gatherings and infrastructure in the Maafar directorate, south of Taiz.

As fighting rages between the Saudi Arabia-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthis, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said almost 260,000 people have been displaced since August. About half of them have taken refuge in Taiz, where fighting is now concentrated, the agency said.

In report released late on Wednesday, OCHA said the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has verified 251 civilian casualties, including 57 people killed and 194 injured. Half of those killed were children.

“Despite extremely difficult conditions,” humanitarian partners have reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August, “nearly six in 10 displaced households,” providing food, hygiene kits and emergency cash in the first days after they were uprooted, OCHA said.

“Newly displaced families say that their most pressing need is shelter, followed by food and cash,” OCHA said.

Yemen’s Ministry of Education earlier announced that more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.

Widening war

The latest reports come as Yemen’s government forces press on with their “Dawn of Yemen” counteroffensive launched earlier this month to recapture Houthi-held areas, including the capital, Sanaa, with support from the Saudi-led coalition.

The operation followed the Houthis’ declaration of a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the crucial Bab al-Mandeb strait in July, as well as lightning offensives that saw the group swiftly seize strategic areas along Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

The Houthis have also launched attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, striking the kingdom’s airports in what analysts say is a pressure campaign to force a political resolution. Houthi forces say the strikes are in retaliation for Saudi Arabia’s longstanding restrictions on Houthi-controlled airports and seaports, including Sanaa airport.

Saudi Arabia’s Authority of Civil Aviation said on Thursday that the death toll has risen to two following a Houthi strike on the King Fahd airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, the US State Department said on Wednesday that it ordered non-essential staff and family members at its embassy in Riyadh to leave the country, raising fears of further escalation.

The embassy was already badly damaged at the onset of the US-Israel war on Iran and had been operating on a lean rota of staff, although some had recently returned.

In a new travel alert, the State Department warned Americans that “the hostilities have the potential to escalate rapidly beyond that immediate area”.

In Yemen, government forces accused the Houthis of striking the Aden and al-Rayyan airports on Wednesday. The head of the governing Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, condemned the strikes and called on the international community to proscribe the group as a “terrorist” organisation.

Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since the Houthis seized Sanaa and several other provinces in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government.

A 2022 UN-brokered truce collapsed in July, as the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi ports.

The Houthis control much of northern and western Yemen, while government forces and their allies hold Aden and large parts of the country’s southern and eastern provinces.