Report: Imports Ongoing to Hodeidah Following Israeli Attacks

Ships are docked at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen July 31, 2024. (Reuters)
Ships are docked at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen July 31, 2024. (Reuters)
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Report: Imports Ongoing to Hodeidah Following Israeli Attacks

Ships are docked at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen July 31, 2024. (Reuters)
Ships are docked at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, Yemen July 31, 2024. (Reuters)

Food imports are ongoing to Houthi-controlled areas following the recent Israeli attacks on vital infrastructure and facilities at the Ras Isa and Hodeidah ports in Yemen, an international report revealed.
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), early analysis indicates an overall low concern for the potential for meaningful disruptions to food and fuel import volumes.
On September 29, Israel targeted vital infrastructure and facilities in Hodeidah for the second time in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Israel. The attacks involved oil tanks at the Ras Isa port (north of the western city of Hodeidah), the port of Hodeidah (the target of the first attack in July), and the governorate’s two main power stations.
According to officials, the airstrikes killed five civilians and wounded 57.
FEWS said the damage to power stations resulted in power outages, including in Hodeidah and parts of Sanaa. It noted that as of the end of September, the power stations remained non-operational. Ras al-Khuthayb power station (the largest) reportedly incurred the most damage, with boilers destroyed by the bombing.
The Network affirmed that three of four oil tanks in Ras Isa were damaged, while Houthis officials reported that the fuel tanks had been recently emptied in anticipation of Israeli strikes.
FEWS also said significant damage at Hodeidah port has not been reported.
Houthi officials report that impacts of the strikes were insignificant.
According to available information, food and fuel imports are ongoing following the attacks. FEWS said it continues to triangulate available data and information sources in the aftermath of the strike and will provide an updated analysis of any expected impacts on acute food insecurity in the forthcoming October Food Security Outlook report.
However, it said, early analysis indicates overall low concern for the potential for meaningful disruptions to food and fuel import volumes.
The report also showed that given poor purchasing capacity and the continued pause of WFP-provided humanitarian food assistance in areas controlled by the Houthi-based authorities, millions of poor households are likely to continue to face food consumption gaps across Yemen, with particular concern for internally displaced persons (IDPs), flood-affected households, and poor households that depend on daily wage opportunities.
FEWS said that across the country, Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse outcomes are expected to persist through January 2025, with some Houthi-controlled governorates likely to continue facing Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes amid the food assistance pause and the impacts of recent devastating flooding.
“Above-average rainfall in July and August contributed to favorable growing conditions for crops and rangeland resources (pasture and water for livestock) in many areas,” the FEWS report said.
However, it added, severe flooding has negatively impacted crop production in affected areas. According to a rapid assessment conducted by FAO in August, around 99,000 hectares (ha) of farmland have been impacted.
The vast majority of this impacted farmland was in Hodeidah (77,362 ha) and Hajjah (20,717 ha), representing approximately 12% and 9%, respectively, of the total farmland.
Meanwhile, around 279,000 sheep and goats were potentially impacted, according to the same FAO assessment.
Hodeidah, Hajjah, and Al Jawf were the most affected, with an estimated 6% of sheep and goats impacted Hodeidah (106, 361), followed by 4% Al Jawf (50,664) and 4% in Hajjah (46,424).
Worst-Affected Households
FEWS said that according to the 2021 Food Security and Livelihoods Assessment, these areas are important livestock suppliers and pastoralism is an important livelihood system, particularly in Al Jawf, where an estimated 20% of households considered livestock to be their primary source of income.
Due to losses of key sources of food and income amid the ongoing assistance pause, some worst-affected households in severely affected areas have likely experienced losses of livestock assets and damage to livelihoods, it noted.
The report also revealed that households worst-affected by flooding in both pastoralist and agropastoral areas are likely unable to meet their minimum food needs in the absence of assistance.
According to the report, September marks the start of the main cereal harvest season in Yemen when poor households experience a seasonal boost in food availability from crop production as well as income from labor opportunities along crop production and marketing chains.

 

 



Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.