U.N. Warns of ‘Total Collapse’ in Yemen as Houthis Continue Offensive

Nick Cumming-Bruce, New York Times

31 March 2015

GENEVA — The United Nations’ human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, warned on Tuesday that Yemen was on the brink of collapse, as his office said heavy fighting in the southern port city of Aden had left scores dead and its hospitals overflowing with bodies.

Fierce clashes continued there on Monday between Shiite Houthi rebels, who are allied with Iran, and fighters loyal to President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the exiled Yemeni leader, who is backed by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab states.

“The situation in Yemen is extremely alarming, with dozens of civilians killed over the past four days,” Mr. al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement. “The country seems to be on the verge of total collapse.”

“The killing of so many innocent civilians is simply unacceptable,” he added.

Monday was the sixth day of a Saudi-led military offensive against the Houthis that is aimed at restoring Mr. Hadi to power. With few signs that the battle has shifted decisevely in favor of any of the combatants and with Yemen under blockade by air and sea, aid agencies intensified their warnings about the toll on civilians and hospitals, which are running critically low on medical supplies.

The most dire warnings came from Aden, a dilapidated port city that has been ravaged for weeks by street fighting between pro-Hadi forces and units loyal to the Houthis and their allies. Residents said that water had been cut off for days and that electricity was out for hours at a time. Al-Khadher Laswar, a Health Ministry official in the city, described the situation as “miserable” and said doctors were overwhelmed by the flood of victims, including civilians struck by shelling or gunfire as the clashes coursed through neighborhoods.

The fighting had made it impossible for paramedics to reach the victims in time, he said. “The ambulances are only used to transport the dead,” he said, adding that least 88 people had been killed over the last six days in the city alone.

As the military offensives, by both the Saudi-led forces and the Houthis, have gathered pace over the last few days, reports of civilian casualties have swelled. Mr. al-Hussein said he was shocked by a Saudi airstrike on Al Mazraq, a camp in northern Yemen for people displaced by the conflict, which caused scores of civilian casualties.

The United Nations human rights office said its staff had confirmed that at least 19 people had been killed and that 35 others had been wounded in that strike, but it noted that there were different accounts of the number of dead. The International Organization for Migration, which had workers in the camp, reported that 40 people had been killed.

The United Nations said an armored division of the Yemeni Army, together with Houthi forces, had attacked three hospitals in the southern city of Al Dhale, causing an unknown number of casualties. “We condemn all attacks on hospitals and call on all sides to protect civilians from harm,” the United Nations office said in a statement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also expressed concern at the number of civilian casualties, reporting that a Yemeni volunteer for the Red Crescent, Omar Ali Hassam, had been shot to death on Monday while evacuating wounded people in the province of Al Dhale.

“There are casualties across the country,” Cédric Schweizer, head of the Red Cross team in Yemen, said in a statement. “There have been airstrikes in the north, west and south, and clashes between opposing Yemeni armed groups in the center and south, that are putting immense strain on already weak medical services.”

The Red Cross said it was trying to fly in medical supplies to replenish hospital stocks but had not been able to negotiate the safe arrival of the aircraft. The organization called for the urgent removal of obstacles to the delivery.

Hospitals, private homes, schools and civilian infrastructure have been hit in several locations, as have civilian airports and electricity generating stations in Sana, Saada and Al Hudaydah, the United Nations said, highlighting fears of the damage that would result from a threatened ground invasion by Saudi and other forces.

The fighting has forced hundreds of families to flee their homes, adding to the more than 334,000 people the United Nations refugee agency reported as displaced in the months of conflict before the recent surge in hostilities.

To escape the fighting, small numbers of Yemenis have started crossing the Red Sea to Somalia and Djibouti, said William Spindler, a spokesman for the refugee agency. “We are preparing for a larger influx,” he added.

The state-run news media in Iran, which has strongly denounced the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen, reported on Tuesday that the Iranians had airlifted humanitarian aid to Yemen, the first such delivery from Iran since the strikes began.

The accounts did not specify precisely where the aid had been sent but said it included 19 tons of medical supplies and two tons of food donated by the Iranian Red Crescent. A report by the Islamic Republic News Agency of Iran also quoted a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman as denying that Iran had sent military aid to the Houthis, calling such allegations lies.

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