Saudi Assault on Yemen’s Main Port Cuts Lifeline for Millions: Aid Agencies

War-torn Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, mainly through Hudaydah where UN inspectors check ships.

Senior aid officials urged Western powers providing arms and intelligence to the coalition to push their oil-rich allies to reconvene UN talks with Yemen's Ansarullah movement to avoid a bloodbath and end the three-year aggression, Reuters reported.

 “The coalition ground forces are now at the doorstep of this heavily-fortified, heavily-mined port city,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters. “Thousands of civilians are fleeing from the outskirts of Hodeidah which is now a battle zone.”

“We cannot have war in Hodeidah, it would be like war in Rotterdam or Antwerp, these are comparable cities in Europe.”

Last week UN aid chief Mark Lowcock urged the Saudi-led coalition that controls Yemen’s ports to expedite food and fuel imports. He warned that a further 10 million Yemenis could face starvation by year-end in addition to 8.4 million already severely short of food in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemen, one of the Arab world’s poorest countries, has been facing a brutal aggression led by its northern neighbor Saudi Arabia since March 2015. Nearly 14,000 Yemenis, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign.

Since last month, the Saudi-led Arab coalition’s forces moved towards the strategic Hudaydah, controlled by the Yemeni army and Ansarullah movement. They made progress from the port city’s southern fronts and along the coast on the strength of air cover provided to them. Saudi-led coalition spokesman claimed on Tuesday their forces were 20 kms from the Red Sea port.

 “Hudaydah, the so-called big battle, has been looming now for 18 months with ups and downs,” Robert Mardini, Middle East regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told Reuters.

“It’s a densely-populated area where any military scenario will risk coming at a huge human cost.”

 “It remains a lifeline for the highlands where close to 70 percent of Yemenis live. It’s about the need to have commercial imports,” Mardini said.

“Despite all the measures put in place by the Coalition to improve imports, what is reaching Hudaydah is very short of the needs.”

Egeland  said “We are now in a race against the clock, to really get enough supplies in through Hudaydah which is very difficult given the continued severe restrictions on fuel and other imports by the coalition.

“War would mean nothing coming through.”