Hodeida

HODEIDA, YEMEN — Thousands of people took to the streets of Yemen’s capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida in western Yemen on Sunday to denounce deadly airstrikes by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition following a pair of attacks on a fish market and hospital in Hodeida that killed scores of civilians. The protests also came in response to kidnappings targeting women in the district of Tuhaita south of Hodeida on July 29.


The U.S.-backed Saudi coalition in Yemen carried out another disturbing war crime against civilians. A series of airstrikes killed at least 55 civilians and injured over 170 more at a busy fish market and hospital. According to Yemen’s Health Ministry, the victims included nine children.
On August 2nd, U.S.-backed Saudi warplanes attacked the bustling al-Mehout fish market in the city of Hodeida, western Yemen.

HODEIDA, YEMEN — The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition conducted numerous airstrikes across Yemen this past weekend, especially against the strategic port city of Hodeida. Heavy civilian casualties have been reported, as has the use of cluster bombs against civilian targets. Hodeida’s water and sewage treatment infrastructure was also targeted in the bombing campaign.

HODEIDA, YEMEN — On Wednesday Yemen’s navy targeted a Saudi warship off Yemen’s western coast in retaliation for the Saudi-led coalition’s deadly military offensive against Hodeida, a lifeline for the majority of Yemen’s population.

Backil al-Shimi is one of the thousands of Yemenis from the Amran governorate that volunteered to join a group of Yemeni civilians fighting alongside Ansar Allah (Houthi) fighters this week. “I am not ready to see my sons die from famine or malnutrition” al-Shimi, a father of eight told MintPress. Hailing from the village of al Shim, 45 km south Sanaa, al-Shimi participated in a fierce battle to retake control of the city of al Jah, 20 km south of Hodeida, after it was taken by Saudi coalition fighters in a recent attack.

HODEIDA, YEMEN — The United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, announced on Sunday a pause in the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led attacks against Yemen’s port city of Hodeida. He claimed the halt is intended to allow United Nations efforts to resolve the conflict to take place.

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA — “That was the last time I saw Hashem,” recounted Mohammed Al Humran, a local Yemeni journalist, as he told MintPress how his 21-year-old son Hashem was killed in a double-tap airstrike while filming Saudi bombing raids in Dahian, north of Sadaa.
Hashem was one of the 180 journalists who have been killed in Yemen by Saudi-coalition forces, according to a report by the Union of Yemeni Journalists.

HODEIDA, YEMEN — Mohammed Mousa, 31, has sharp wide eyes. Enthusiastic and angry, he shouts slogans against Yemen’s latest invaders while in the midst of a huge rally in Hodeida. Mousa was one of the thousands of Yemeni residents of the Tihamah region to take to the streets on Friday to protest the U.S.-backed Saudi coalition’s assault on their city. Carrying banners, Kalashnikovs, and Yemeni flags, they chanted lyrics from Yemen’s national anthem “my heartbeat shall remain that of a Yemeni … no foreigner shall ever hold dominion over Yemen.”

HODEIDA, YEMEN — Lying in torn, blood-stained clothing on a bed in Hodeida Hospital’s emergency room, 25-year-old Mabkhout, who refused to provide his last name for fear of retaliation, recounted the events which led him there:

I got up early this morning for this chance to work, we were transporting tires and oil from a shop to a tanker and suddenly a warplane bombed us. There were 20 of us workers, three of my friends were killed.”  

HODEIDA, YEMEN — For two years now, 28-year-old Hafedh Hassan has made the wearying trip — 80 miles each way, on bad roads — from his village in the coffee-growing Haraz region to this city on Yemen’s west coast, where a brilliant red sun meets the dazzling Red Sea.