Yemeni Army Stuns Houthis in Hajjah, Prepares for Taiz Operations

Government forces are seen as they enter Abs in the Hajjah province after battles with the Houthis on Thursday. (AFP)
Government forces are seen as they enter Abs in the Hajjah province after battles with the Houthis on Thursday. (AFP)
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Yemeni Army Stuns Houthis in Hajjah, Prepares for Taiz Operations

Government forces are seen as they enter Abs in the Hajjah province after battles with the Houthis on Thursday. (AFP)
Government forces are seen as they enter Abs in the Hajjah province after battles with the Houthis on Thursday. (AFP)

The Yemeni military stunned the Iran-backed Houthi militias in Hajjah by liberating several territories in the northwestern border province.

The military media said the forces launched a widescale attack against the Houthis, liberating several villages amid a complete collapse in militia ranks. The army recaptured the villages of al-Akashiya, al-Jarf, al-Kalfoud, al-Hamra, al-Shabaka, al-Maasar, al-Dhaher and Shaab al-Dosh.

The forces destroyed an armed drone and seized a large amount of weapons and military vehicles, while the Houthis suffered major casualties.

Meanwhile, two military sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the troops were seeking to liberate regions that lead to the outskirts of the heart of the Abs district. They will seek to surround it before infiltrating it from the coast. They will then move east to surround other regions in the district and the towns that stretch along the Harad-Hodeidah road to the south.

The battles on this front erupted after nearly a year and a half of relative calm.

Observers believe that troops operating in the fifth military zone were aiming to ease the Houthi pressure on the Marib and al-Jawf fronts, while it simultaneously carries out its operations to liberate the Taiz province.

The legitimate government controls the Midi, Hiran and most of the Harad and parts of the Mastaba districts in Hajjah. The Houthis control the rest.

In Taiz, the military called on people “who have been deceived by the Houthis to return to their senses and join their brothers in the national army.”

The local authority has declared general mobilization ahead of the launch of operations to liberate the province.

Meanwhile, the legitimate government urged the European Union to exert pressure on the Iranian regime to force it to cease its meddling in Yemen and support to the Houthis, said official sources.

Foreign Minister Ahmad bin Awad bin Mubarak held telephone talks with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

The FM told Borrell that the “hostile Houthi militias are a dangerous threat to the future of Yemen and the region”.

“The Iranian agenda in Yemen cannot be allowed to succeed,” he urged, demanding that pressure be applied on the Iranian regime to make it stop its interference in Yemen and destabilizing acts in the region.

The pressure should force Tehran to stop using the Houthis to launch hostile acts in Yemen and against Saudi Arabia, he continued.

He vowed that the government will continue to pursue peace and back the efforts of United Nations envoy Martin Griffiths.



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.