Yemen’s health ministry says looting of aid facilities in Khokha is depriving patients of care
Yemen Herald News 
ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population said attacks on health and humanitarian facilities in Khokha District and along the western coast are depriving patients of care.
The ministry said in a statement that looting and attacks had hit facilities and programmes funded by the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, and that the damage threatened the continuity of health care and aid delivery.
It said the loss of services falls on patients, children, women, displaced people and others who depend on them.
The ministry called for the protection of health facilities, medical workers, equipment, medicines and supplies.
It asked humanitarian and international organisations to keep essential services running and to make sure aid reaches people in need.
The relief centre has not confirmed damage to its Khokha programmes. The Houthi authorities in Sanaa have not answered the accusation publicly.
Asharq Al-Awsat reported separately that Houthi operations, looting and seizures had halted support for 30 health facilities across six coastal districts, including Khokha and Hays in Hodeidah.
Yemen’s Human Rights Ministry made a similar accusation on 18 September, saying Houthi forces attacked and looted Saudi-funded humanitarian and medical facilities in al-Khawkhah and elsewhere on the western coast.
That ministry said the attacks affected clinics, food and medicine warehouses, and water and shelter projects, and that thousands of civilians and displaced people could lose access to basic services.
“These attacks represent a direct targeting of humanitarian and relief efforts,” the Human Rights Ministry said.
Both ministries belong to the internationally recognised government based in Aden. The two statements carry the same authority rather than separate confirmation.
Khokha, which Yemeni sources also render as al-Khawkhah, lies on the Red Sea coast in southern Hodeidah governorate.
Houthi forces took the district in early September as they pushed south, capturing Hays and Khokha before entering Mokha, which government forces and the National Resistance left to reposition, Yemen Monitor reported.
Yemen Monitor reported on 13 September that Houthi forces had begun moving medical and military equipment from Mokha and Khokha to Sanaa.
Two sources told the outlet that resuscitation devices and CT scanners were taken from the December 2nd Hospital in Mokha, along with equipment from the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Hospital in Khokha.
The outlet said it could not verify how much equipment was moved or where it went, and that its sources spoke anonymously.
One source said gunmen cordoned off several health facilities after the city fell, keeping residents away while the transfers took place.
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms said it documented 958 violations between 3 and 11 September in Hays and Khokha in Hodeidah and in al-Wazi’iyah, Mawza, Mokha and Dhubab in Taiz.
The group said raids affected 356 homes and facilities that were stormed or looted, among them 11 government facilities.
It recorded 177 killings of civilians and 212 injuries over the same period. Those counts come from a single monitoring group and have not been matched by a second tally.
The group said killings of wounded people and prisoners, including cases inside health facilities, raised concerns about the protection owed to the wounded under international humanitarian law.
The group said about 2,300 families, or 19,440 people, were forced from their homes by shelling and the targeting of residential areas, including 823 families evicted from Mokha.
It said the port and airport at Mokha were looted of equipment, documents and electronic devices, and that eight vehicles were taken from a United Nations humanitarian centre in the city.
Fighting on the western coast has displaced tens of thousands of people. The International Organization for Migration said about 46,000 had fled by 11 September.
The migration agency had put the number displaced in Taiz and Hodeidah at about 18,500 in the first days after fighting escalated on 3 September.
The shelter and site coordination cluster tracked roughly 15,400 newly displaced households by 13 September and said the numbers were changing from day to day.
The cluster said access was constrained, with the Taiz-Mokha road disrupted, the main road to Maqbanah blocked and clashes on the road between Mokha and Aden. It said telecommunications outages were hampering verification.
The World Health Organization says about 60 per cent of health facilities in Yemen are fully operational.
The agency said hospitals in Marib, Hadramout and Taiz were taking in wounded people, adding to pressure on emergency, surgical and intensive care units.
At Marib General Hospital, maternity and obstetric services were suspended for a time as the hospital handled trauma cases and the number of dead exceeded its mortuary capacity, the agency said.
Doctors Without Borders said it had sent medicines and supplies to hospitals in Hodeidah to treat people wounded in the fighting, and trauma kits to hospitals in Taiz, al-Bayda and al-Jawf.
The United Nations humanitarian plan for 2026 puts more than 22 million people in need of assistance, with 18.3 million acutely food insecure and more than 2.2 million children under five acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.
The plan counts 5.2 million internally displaced people and seeks $2.16 billion to reach 12 million of them.
Yemen Monitor also reported that Houthi technical teams were sent to Mokha, Khokha, Hays and Dhubab to reconnect those areas to networks run from Sanaa.
The outlet said Starlink satellite terminals held by residents and local bodies were being confiscated in several coastal areas.
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