Hundreds of families trapped in homes by Yemen’s war

Infrastructure in the southern city of Aden has been systematically destroyed by a month of urban warfare between Shiite Houthi rebels and local militiamen backed by Saudi-led air strikes.

Armed tribal supporters of Yemen's exiled president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, keep position near Aden's international airport, as battles against Shiite Houthi rebels continue, on May 2, 2015. Saleh Al-Obeidi/AFP PhotoShow less

SANAA // Hundreds of families are trapped in their homes by weeks of fierce fighting in the centre of Aden, their only lifeline coming from volunteers making dangerous runs across the city’s harbour in rickety boats bearing food and medicine.

The southern port city, once Yemen’s commercial hub, has seen a month of unrelenting urban warfare between Shiite Houthi rebels and local militiamen backed by airstrikes from a Saudi-led coalition trying to stop the rebel advance.

Infrastructure in the city, once home to a million people, has been systematically destroyed. Wheat is scarce after grain silos at the port were destroyed by airstrikes when the rebels took refuge in them. Other strikes have pounded hotels and schools – even the city’s main shopping mall – used as gathering points by the Houthis.

“They are starving us,” said Mohammed Mater, who has been trapped in his home in central Aden for weeks along with his wife and seven children, with no electricity or running water.

They have been surviving, he said, on canned tuna, dates and rice.

Central Aden is located on a peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus that is largely controlled by the Houthis and their allies – troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The geography has left residents isolated as their streets have become war zones, with tanks firing and snipers on rooftops as the poorly armed militias try to fend off the Houthis and pro-Saleh forces.

With ambulances unable to reach them because of sniper fire, dead and wounded often lie for days in the streets. Some families have buried loved ones in their backyards. Others have made their way to the Aden University medical school to bury them in an empty lot.

“It’s a big prison here. The war in front of us and the sea behind us,” Mr Mater said. “We became like street beggars waiting for anyone to drop us a piece of bread or water.”

One of the few sources of supplies are the boat runs organised by a group of volunteers called “For You, Aden”. Several times over the past week, the group has gathered food and medicine and delivered it by old boats from mainland neighbourhoods of Aden, crossing some five kilometres across the harbour to the peninsula.

The group has lists of families trapped in the centre, but once they reach the area they often cannot move past the docks because of the fighting, so residents have to make a risky run to come get it themselves, , said Maha El Sayyed, a volunteer with the group.

Yemen’s president, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, set up his government in Aden after escaping house arrest in Sanaa, which the rebels overran last September.

He was forced to flee in late March after Houthi rebels and their allies closed in on Aden in late March.

The Houthi advance triggered a campaign of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition aimed at pushing back the Iran-backed rebels from areas they had siezed across the country and restoring Mr Hadi’s internationally recognised government.

Aden has been one of the main battlegrounds in the fighting that has raged since, which the UN says has killed more that 1,200 people since March 19.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon warned on Thursday that the conflict had left Yemen’s health, water and telecommunications systems “on the brink of collapse”.

However, the UN security council on Friday failed to agree on a draft resolution submitted by Russia, a close ally of Iran, calling for a ceasefire or humanitarian pauses in the conflict to allow aid into the country.

Yemen imports 90 per cent of its food supplies – not only have imports been disrupted, but distributing the food that does reach the remaining operating ports to other parts of the country has become difficult. Fuel prices have skyrocketed, causing food prices to spiral up as well.

In Aden, food supplies are tight in the few relatively safe districts where tens of thousands who have fled their homes are crowded.

“Now the only source of food is from storage houses and these are running out,” said Naguib Babli, an official at the Aden chamber of commerce. Water is distributed by donkey carts after water stations were either bombed or ran out of fuel to pump it to houses.

This week, pro-Saleh troops overran the neighborhood of Khor Maksar, located on the isthmus, after overwhelming militias defending the area. The troops had lists of wanted militia leaders and Hadi supporters and went house to house in the district searching for them, shooting some in the street, an Aden security official said.

Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Khaleq, a well-known writer in Aden, fled his house in Khor Maksar on Friday.

“I am not afraid of the war as much as I am afraid of what will happen next,” he said. “Aden’s infrastructure has been eliminated. There are no more airports in Aden, no hotels, no hospitals, nothing.

“The worst is yet to come.”

* Associated Press