Official Yemeni sources reported that Iran-backed Houthi militias have killed and wounded 300 civilians in southern Marib, an oil-rich Yemeni governorate Houthis are desperately trying to control through violence.
While the Houthi crimes against civilians were condemned by the government and human rights authorities, field sources stated that the group had intensified the bombing of areas north of Marib’s Juba district after having captured the neighboring Jabal Murad district.
Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said on Twitter that the Houthi “militia continues to systematically and deliberately bombard villages and homes... in order to inflict casualties among civilians, forcing hundreds of families and displaced to flee.”
The UN human rights office in Marib reported that the continuous escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia on the villages and homes of citizens in the Juba district has killed and injured 300 civilians and displaced more than 10,000 families.
It added in a statement that the Houthi militia targeted a location in the Juba district with more than 20 mortar and Katyusha shells, which caused the death and injury of dozens of civilians, the destruction of their property, and the displacement of more than 500 families.
More so, the office condemned international silence in the face of Houthi crimes against citizens in Marib and all Yemeni governorates.
The UN office called on the international community and world organizations to assume their moral responsibilities towards Yemenis who are dying of siege and starvation, mass executions and repressive practices, and the continuous bombing of villages and neighborhoods.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, 120 kilometers west of Marib.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Marib city had between 20,000 and 30,000 inhabitants before the war but its population ballooned to hundreds of thousands as Yemenis fled frontline cities for its relative stability.
But with about 139 refugee camps in the province, according to the government, hosting around 2.2 million people, many displaced civilians have become caught in the line of fire once again.
Tens of thousands have been displaced in the province this year, including nearly 10,000 in September alone, said the UN’s migration agency, the International Organization for Migration.
