TAIZ: The toll from days of fighting between government forces and Houthi rebels in southwest Yemen climbed past 300 on Sunday, as hundreds of families fled their homes to escape the violence.
Two military officials with the Saudi-backed government forces said that 84 of their troops were killed, mostly in missile attacks, while four Houthi military sources said 57 rebel fighters were killed in the same period.
Days-long clashes have erupted in Yemen over control of a gateway to the Red Sea in the deadliest fighting in the Arabian Peninsula country since a 2022 ceasefire between the two sides collapsed in July.
Beginning on Thursday, the Houthis launched an offensive aiming to cut off the government-held port city of Mokha, under fire for weeks, and advance towards areas bordering the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
A military official within the government said that the Houthis had succeeded on Saturday evening in “cutting off the road linking Taiz to Mokha.” According to a tally compiled using various military and medical sources from both sides of the conflict, more than 300 combatants and some civilians have been killed since the start of the Houthi assault on Thursday.
Families fleeing fighting in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi in Taiz governorate in Yemen’s southwest took refuge at Al-Bareen camp for the internally displaced on Saturday. Journalists saw families arriving in pickup trucks piled with blankets and other belongings, setting up shelters in scrubland exposed to the sun and heat.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a Middle East expert at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, said the Houthis were looking to exploit a weak frontline at Mokha and “cut a lot of ties between Taiz and Bab al-Mandab and Mokha”. “If they have a chance to fully take over Bab al-Mandab, they won’t hesitate for a second,” he added.
Adam Baron said the Houthi offensive since Thursday had “shattered much of what was left of Yemen’s tenuous ceasefire”.
Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2026
