Saba says six civilians killed in shelling of villages in southern Taiz
Yemen Herald News 
TAIZ, Yemen — Six civilians were killed and four others wounded in shelling of villages in southern Taiz governorate, Yemen’s state news agency Saba reported on Tuesday.
Saba said a woman was killed and four civilians wounded, among them a child and two women, when shells hit the villages of al-Doum, Hujrah and al-Manawid in the Bani Yusuf area of al-Mawasit district.
A separate strike hit the village of al-Sarm in al-Misrakh district, the agency said.
Saba named the dead there as Derhim Ahmed Amir, his wife, his daughter, his daughter-in-law and two of her children. A mortar round fired at the family’s house killed them, the agency said.
Villages in the Qadas area have come under continued shelling, Saba said, citing residents. It said a number of wounded people had not been able to reach hospital.
The agency attributed both accounts to local sources it did not name. It blamed Houthi forces for the shelling.
Yemen Herald could not independently confirm either incident. Anadolu Agency carried the same account, attributing it to Yemeni state media, and reported that the Houthis had not commented on it. No independent wire service, monitoring group or United Nations body has published its own account of the two attacks.
Anadolu reported a separate episode on Oct. 2, when two people were killed and seven wounded in shelling across the governorate. That account drew on the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms, a local monitoring group, as well as on Saba and on statements by the Yemeni army.
It named the Old Airport and Wadi al-Qadi neighbourhoods of Taiz city, and the areas of al-Turbah and al-Dhabab in the governorate’s rural west. The Houthis did not comment on those reports either.
Taiz is among the governorates worst affected by the fighting that escalated across Yemen on Aug. 6.
The World Health Organization recorded 233 casualties in Taiz between Sept. 27 and Oct. 2, according to its sixth situation report on the escalation, published Oct. 4. That was 47 percent of the casualties the agency itemised by governorate over the period.
Of the Taiz total, 225 were recorded in the three days to Oct. 2, WHO said. It put the death rate among casualties in the governorate at 28 percent.
Lahj accounted for 123 casualties over the same period, according to the report, and Marib for 120.
Across Yemen, WHO recorded 5,166 casualties since Aug. 6. The total comprises 959 deaths and 4,207 injuries.
The agency said 685 casualties were recorded between Sept. 27 and Oct. 2, among them 121 deaths and 564 injuries. That worked out at 114 casualties a day, up from 101 a day in the previous reporting period.
WHO verified 152 casualties on Oct. 1 and 161 on Oct. 2, the highest single-day counts of the period.
The organization compiles the figures from a war and field conflict casualty register kept by the Health Emergency Operations Centre, which reports to the Ministry of Public Health and Population.
WHO says the register covers only verified reports from health facilities in areas held by the internationally recognised government. Data from areas under Houthi control is not accessible, the agency said, and it describes its totals as a minimum.
The fighting in Taiz follows the Houthi seizure of Yemen’s Red Sea coast in early September, Al Jazeera reported on Oct. 4. The internationally recognised government announced an offensive on Sept. 25 to retake the lost ground.
Al Jazeera said the fighting had centred on Jabal Han, a mountain west of Taiz city, and on the districts of Hazran, Samaa and Dhubab.
A military spokesman for the government said its forces had taken the fort at Samaa and repelled Houthi attacks. Al Jazeera said it could not verify the government’s claim of hundreds of Houthi casualties.
Yemen’s Executive Unit for IDP Camps Management put the number of people displaced since early September at close to 200,000, according to the same report.
Al Jazeera correspondents in the governorate reported artillery fire and civilian casualties, among them an infant 14 days old killed by shelling in Dhubab.
The UN refugee agency and WHO have both warned that the fighting is endangering health services in the governorate, which has a population of about 4.5 million.
Ibrahim Jalal, an analyst quoted in the report, said control of Taiz would help the Houthis consolidate their hold on the coast and on the approaches to the Bab al-Mandab strait.
Al-Mawasit and al-Misrakh lie south of Taiz city. Front lines have divided the governorate since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and pushed south the following year.
WHO put the share of deaths among all casualties recorded since Aug. 6 at 18.6 percent.
The agency recorded a further 17 casualties at Seiyun and al-Abr, in Hadramout and Marib, over the Sept. 27 to Oct. 2 period.
Saba did not say what weapons were used in the Qadas shelling, or give a figure for the wounded there.
Al Jazeera said the port of Mocha, on the Red Sea coast west of the governorate, is among the places at stake in the fighting.
Al-Jawf accounted for two casualties in the Sept. 27 to Oct. 2 period, the fewest of any governorate WHO listed.
About the Author
