Yemen: Marib council welcomes families fleeing the Houthis

The Security Committee of Marib governorate agreed to receive families fleeing Houthi territory yesterday, Saba News reported.

An emergency plan was drawn up to receive scores of families fleeing the Houthi territory in the capital Sana’a after the killing of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh last week. The Houthis have since enforced a major crackdown on pro-Saleh loyalists.

Marib officials have outlined security plans which include registering people entering the governorate in an effort to prevent Houthi members from infiltrating.

“The government will not let down the civilians and political and military leaders in the Houthi-controlled provinces vulnerable to this militia’s terrorism and atrocities,” Deputy Governor of Marib Abd Rabbuh Miftah said.

Miftah condemned the Houthi group’s killings in Sana’a and the onslaught against the remaining Saleh forces. A wave of internally displaced persons has escaped to surrounding provinces and governorates.

Read: Yemen’s Saleh buried in Sanaa with handful of relatives present

In a push to retake territory from the Houthis, the national army of internationally recognised President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has been joined by former Saleh loyalists following the former leader’s death.

In addition to Saleh forces, the army now also includes UAE-backed forces, including the Southern Transitional Council’s forces. The Tihama tribe, located on the western coast of Yemen has also joined the fight against the Houthis in a bid to force the group back to the northern governorate of Saada and retake Hudaydah. The Houthis have already lost Khokha, a region 122 kilometres south of Hudaydah, to the new allied coalition.

The Yemen civil war erupted in 2014 when the Houthi group, alongside forces loyal to Saleh, took over the capital of Sana’a. Hadi was forced to request support from a Saudi-led coalition to neutralise threats posed by the Houthi-Saleh alliance in March 2015.

Amid the changing conflict dynamics, negative sentiments against the Houthi group have increased in pace as a result of mass arrests, killings and raids by the group in Sana’a.