Sawt Falasteen - More than 140 killed in latest Yemen clashes: military sources

Two military officials with the Saudi-backed government forces told AFP 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 told AFP that the Houthis had succeeded on Saturday evening in "cutting off the road linking Taiz to Mokha."

According to an AFP 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.

AFP journalists saw families arriving in pickup trucks piled with blankets and other belongings, setting up shelters in scrubland exposed to the sun and heat.

- 'We fled' -

"The shooting came at us from above and from below... they surrounded us from every direction, we fled with our children without even putting on our shoes," said Rawdhah Hasan, a woman displaced from Maqbanah.

Nimah Saif, another woman displaced from the Jabal Habashi district, said that "some people were injured and others were killed, we saw them lying on the ground, but we could not help anyone".

"Now we are stranded here, hungry, with nothing to eat," she added.

The UN agency for humanitarian coordination OCHA said on Friday that an estimated 1,790 households had been displaced following "intense shelling and clashes" in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi districts.

The fighting prompted nearby sites for the internally displaced to empty, OCHA said, "generating large-scale secondary displacement".

One military official with the internationally recognised government based in Aden said fighting had subsided in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The military official said government "forces were able to establish positions for themselves north of Hays after advancing in the area", referring to a frontline district less than 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) inland from the Red Sea coast.

But the official added the Houthis had advanced west of Taiz, south of Hays, in their push towards the Bab al-Mandab.

- Ceasefire shattered -

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, a fellow at US-based think tank New America, said the Houthi offensive since Thursday had "shattered much of what was left of Yemen's tenuous ceasefire".

"Things increasingly appear to be on a path to escalation with few potential off-ramps," he added.

With Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial ships, the Bab al-Mandab chokepoint has gained importance as a transit route which connects Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal.

In July, a fragile truce between the Houthis and Yemen's government fell apart after the rebels welcomed an Iranian plane to the capital Sanaa, setting off a spate of attacks.

The fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and government troops supported by US ally Saudi Arabia signals the emergence of a new front in the wider Middle East war, which broke out in late February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

The Houthis have also announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and have begun targeting its ships and territory.

T.Khatib--SF-PST