Ministry of Human Rights says two Houthi missiles struck a crowded market in Lahj

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AL-MUDHARABAH, Yemen — Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights said two ballistic missiles struck a crowded market in Lahj governorate on Monday, wounding civilians and damaging shops and vehicles.

The ministry blamed the Houthis. It said the missiles landed beside the Bab al-Mandab Commercial Complex in the al-Hajaf area of al-Mudharabah and Ras al-Ara district.

The two missiles hit nearly an hour apart, according to the statement. Both landed around midday, when the market was busy with shoppers and passers-by.

Independent reporting described two explosions at the market about an hour apart, with civilian injuries and damage to shops and vehicles. Footage of the blasts circulated the same day.

The Houthis said the explosions were caused by Saudi airstrikes. The government blamed Houthi ballistic missiles. Yemen Herald could not establish which side fired, and the ministry’s account of the launch site rests on the ministry alone, carried by the state news agency Saba.

The ministry said surveillance cameras recorded the missiles hitting the market. It said preliminary information on launch times and flight paths indicated they were fired from Houthi-held areas in al-Sabrah district, Ibb governorate.

It gave no figure for the wounded. The statement said the ministry would keep verifying the extent of casualties and damage.

The ministry described the strike as part of a pattern it says it has recorded through the war, in which populated areas are hit after battlefield setbacks. The Houthis dispute that characterisation.

Deliberate attacks on civilians amount to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the ministry said.

It called on the United Nations, the UN special envoy for Yemen and the wider international community to condemn such attacks and to press for accountability.

The market sits close to one of the most heavily contested fronts in the country.

Fighting in al-Mudharabah and Ras al-Ara forms part of a Houthi offensive launched on 3 September against the internationally recognised government, aimed at the Red Sea coast and the approaches to the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Houthi forces took the port city of Mokha during that push, Al Jazeera reported. The advance also gave the group Perim Island and the Hanish Islands, and a position astride the strait.

The districts named in the ministry statement lie on Lahj’s border with Taiz governorate. They straddle the overland route between Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast and Aden.

Units of the Giants Brigades and the Nation’s Shield Forces are deployed on that front, Yemen Monitor reported, alongside armed members of the Subaiha tribe.

Government forces captured Jabal al-Bazla and the al-Dhahoura and al-Saybara positions on the al-Aghbara front in Subaiha after hours of fighting, the outlet said. It reported that Houthi forces lost personnel and equipment there.

Clashes have also been reported on the Bab al-Mandab, al-Mudharabah and al-Waziyah fronts, southwest of Taiz.

Neither side has secured the coastline or the strait. The fighting has run for close to three weeks without a shift decisive enough to settle control of either.

The Houthis have fired missiles well beyond the southern fronts during the offensive. The Saudi-led coalition said on 19 September that its defences intercepted a Houthi missile aimed at Riyadh, Al Jazeera reported.

The group declared a blockade on Saudi-linked shipping after taking the coast, according to that reporting.

Bab al-Mandab links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. It carries a large share of the traffic bound for the Suez Canal.

The humanitarian position behind the fighting was already severe. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance.

OCHA puts the number who are acutely food insecure at 18.3 million. It says more than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.

The agency counts 5.2 million internally displaced people across the country. Its current appeal seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of them.

The International Organization for Migration says close to 130,000 people have left their homes across Yemen in the past few weeks.

IOM reported that more than 11,400 families have been displaced since 3 September. Most are in Taiz and southern Hudaydah governorates.

Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, has warned that the attacks risk widening the war. He called the developments “extremely dangerous”.

Grundberg has been in Muscat for talks with Omani officials and Houthi representatives.

The Ministry of Human Rights sits within the internationally recognised government, which is based in Aden. It has issued a series of statements on strikes in the south since the offensive began.

Ibb governorate, named in the ministry’s account of the launch site, has been under Houthi control since 2014.

Yemen is not a party to the Rome Statute. The International Criminal Court has no standing jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory, and a referral by the UN Security Council would be needed for the court to take a case.

Ras al-Ara is best known outside Yemen as a departure and transit point for migrants crossing the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa.

The al-Hajaf market serves villages on both sides of the Lahj and Taiz boundary. Trade there has continued through earlier rounds of fighting on the coast.

The ministry said it would continue documenting the incident and gathering further information.