Both sides report more than 80 killed in a day of fighting around Taiz

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TAIZ, Yemen — More than 80 fighters and soldiers were killed around Taiz in the 24 hours to Friday, sources on both sides of the front told Agence France-Presse.

At least 55 of the dead were anti-government fighters, according to Houthi military sources. Government sources put their own losses at 26 military personnel.

Yemen Herald could not independently verify either tally.

Col. Majed al-Nuzaili, a spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, said government units carried out 468 strikes across three fronts, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

He named Samea, al-Wazi’iyah in western Taiz and al-Bayda among the areas where the fighting was concentrated.

Samea opened as a front this week. Local accounts cited by the newspaper reported dozens killed or wounded there.

Fighting was also reported at Bani Bakari in Jabal Habashi district, at Humeir in Maqbanah, at al-Arbaeen north of Taiz city and at al-Shaqab in Sabir al-Mawadim district.

Government forces said they had inflicted hundreds of casualties on the Houthis. That claim has not been independently confirmed.

A day earlier, government officials said at least 30 Houthi fighters had been killed, Arab News reported.

Col. Abdul Basit al-Baher, an army spokesman in Taiz, said dozens of Houthis, among them field commanders, had been killed, wounded or captured.

Government warplanes carried out six airstrikes on Houthi positions in southern and southeastern Taiz on Thursday, the army said.

Those strikes covered Jabal Habashi, Maqbanah and al-Misrakh districts, al-Kadha west of the city and the Hayjat al-Abd road.

Defence Minister Lt. Gen. Taher al-Aqili and Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Basr were named in government accounts of the operation.

President Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, reviewed the Taiz front with commanders this week and said the armed forces would end the war.

The International Organization for Migration says about 149,000 people have been displaced since the escalation began, most of them from Taiz and Lahj governorates. An earlier IOM count put the figure above 145,000 across eight governorates.

Yemen’s Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps recorded 23,550 displaced families, or 158,109 people, in a count that ran through Sept. 27.

The Unit placed that displacement across ten governorates held by the internationally recognised government.

A government coordination meeting in Aden on Monday reviewed the humanitarian response to the displacement wave and agreed to work toward a single set of displacement figures. Deputy Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nizar Basuhyab chaired it.

Local officials in Hadramout counted more than 5,100 displaced households sheltering in the governorate. Salem al-Khunbashi, a member of the Presidential Leadership Council and governor of Hadramout, led a review of the response there.

The World Health Organization said 838 people had been killed and 3,643 wounded across Yemen since fighting escalated on Aug. 6. The figures come from Yemen’s Health Emergency Operations Center, which collects returns from hospitals and health facilities.

UNICEF said 243 schools had closed as displacement rose.

Dr Annette Heinzelmann, the World Health Organization’s regional emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said on Sept. 29 that Yemen’s health system was nearing breaking point as cholera, dengue and measles spread. She spoke by video link from Cairo.

Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, said this week that he was alarmed by the intensified fighting in Taiz. He met the Houthi chief negotiator in Muscat and held talks in Cairo on the escalation.

The HALO Trust suspended landmine clearance in Taiz and Mokha and moved staff to Aden, the demining group said in a report released on Sept. 30. Mara van der Kamp, HALO’s country director for Yemen, said renewed fighting threatened to raise casualties from mines and unexploded ordnance among civilians leaving the front lines. The group has worked around Taiz since 2022.

Yemen’s cabinet approved steps to carry out a general mobilisation. Parliament endorsed the measure on Sept. 29.

The government has also asked the UN Security Council to enforce the arms embargo on the Houthis, saying modified missiles fired from Hodeidah endanger civilian aircraft. The letter went to the Council president and to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The Houthis seized the Red Sea port city of Mokha on Sept. 10.

Reporting at the time said the advance along the coast raised concern about shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait.

Nearly 3,000 people reached Djibouti from Yemen in less than a week after crossing the Bab al-Mandab in small boats, the UN refugee agency said in a briefing note on Sept. 18. More than half of those arrivals were women and children.

Taiz has been contested since 2015, with government forces holding the city centre and Houthi units positioned in the surrounding highlands.

On Sept. 27, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said Saudi airstrikes had hit a market on the outskirts of Taiz. He reported seven people killed and 40 wounded, among them five children.

The Saudi-led coalition did not publicly address that account.

The Houthis separately denied Saudi accusations that they had struck an electricity station serving the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina on Thursday.

Masam, the Saudi-funded demining project, said teams destroyed 299 landmines and unexploded munitions in a controlled detonation in the Zukhar area of al-Dhale governorate on Sept. 30.