Houthi missile barrage hits Mocha port as fighting escalates in Yemen
Yemen's Houthi movement launched fresh missile and drone attacks on the government-held city of Marib and the Red Sea port city of Mocha, wounding civilians, damaging property and forcing the suspension of commercial operations at the port, according to government officials and media reports.
The latest escalation comes as fighting resumes across several Yemeni provinces after a relative lull that had largely held since April 2022.
Yemen's Marib Governorate said the Houthis fired six ballistic missiles and launched four drones at residential neighbourhoods in the densely populated city on Saturday and Sunday.
The attacks wounded at least four people and damaged homes, vehicles and other civilian property, according to the governorate's media office.
One strike hit a bakery in al-Sharika north of Marib city, wounding one person.
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The governorate said the continuing attacks threatened civilians and camps housing displaced people. It later reported that a sixth ballistic missile had struck the city, publishing photographs showing a crater and the wreckage of a damaged vehicle.
The Marib media office called on the international community to “condemn these attacks and crimes targeting displacement camps, residential neighbourhoods and civilian facilities, and document them as violations of international humanitarian law”.
The attacks followed earlier reports from Yemeni officials that several ballistic missiles and drones had targeted civilian infrastructure in Marib, causing explosions across the province.
State-run Saba TV and government-aligned Aljoumhouria TV also reported missile strikes and explosions in the city.
Fighting spreads across Yemen
Meanwhile, repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks have forced commercial and maritime operations at Mocha port to stop, causing an estimated $16m in damages, according to Abdulmalik al-Sharabi, the port's director.
Sharabi said the attacks had killed seven people, including four security personnel and three port employees, according to Yemen's state-run Saba news agency.
He said the strategic port in southwestern Taiz province, near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, had been struck by more than 25 missiles since 9 August, marking the first reported attacks on the facility since the 2022 truce.
The attacks damaged six wooden vessels and a dredger being used for the port's expansion, Sharabi said, adding that the suspension of operations had left about 1,300 workers without income.
On Friday, government-aligned National Resistance Forces had said that the Houthis had launched 40 ballistic missiles, 46 drones and explosive-laden boats targeting Mocha, its port and civilian sites in recent days.
The Houthis, however, said they had targeted military gatherings, weapons depots and military boats in the areas around Mocha.
The renewed violence has also spread to the southwestern province of Taiz, where the Yemeni military said three Houthi fighters were killed and several others, including field commanders, were wounded in drone strikes on Saturday.
A military source told Saba TV that army drones targeted Houthi gatherings and vehicles on the Maqbanah front, west of Taiz city.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks across Marib, al-Jawf, al-Dhalea and Taiz, ending much of the relative calm that followed the April 2022 truce.
Yemen's war began after the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and other parts of the country in September 2014.
The conflict has since plunged Yemen into one of the world's most severe humanitarian and economic crises.
The chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, warned that recent attacks on the port threatened shipping traffic and food and fuel supplies, potentially worsening Yemen's food crisis.
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