Yemen’s Houthis have seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha from Saudi-backed pro-government forces, military sources and witnesses say.
Mokha’s capture leaves the Iran-backed group only 75km (46 miles) away from the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern gateway to a trade route that links Asia and Europe.
The Houthis said they posed no threat to international shipping but reiterated their threat to target vessels from Saudi Arabia, which has relied on the Red Sea for oil exports since the US and Israel’s war effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
The escalation of the conflict between the Houthis, Yemen’s government and Saudi Arabia has contributed to a surge in oil prices.
Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed and thousands displaced since the Houthis launched an offensive in the south-west a week ago.
A Saudi-led coalition has also carried out air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas in western Yemen in support of the pro-government forces, and the Houthis have launched missiles and drones at cities and oil facilities in southern Saudi Arabia.
Mokha residents said Houthi fighters moved into the city after fierce clashes with pro-government forces on Wednesday night, prompting many families to flee their homes.
“The takeover came without warning. Panic spread throughout the area, forcing people to flee amid distressing scenes of injured people lying in the streets with no-one there to help them,” one man told BBC Arabic’s Middle East Lifeline programme.
Another man said that Houthi fighters were patrolling the streets of Mokha on Thursday, while government offices and shops were closed.
“At the moment, we don’t know what Ansar Allah will do,” he added, using the group’s formal name. “Everyone is afraid for their safety.”
Many displaced families are heading east towards the city of Aden, where Yemen’s internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council and government are based.
“We fled with our children and kept running. We have no bedding, no home, nothing with us. Everything was destroyed within an hour. They didn’t even give us a chance or warn us beforehand,” one woman told BBC Arabic.
“We are women with no means of defending ourselves, and we have innocent children with us.”
There was no immediate confirmation of Mokha’s capture from the Houthis.
But the group’s Supreme Political Council said in a statement on Thursday that clashes had “ceased in the western coast districts after the expulsion of Saudi enemy mobilisations”, according to Houthi-run Al Masirah TV.
Tarek Salah, leader of the pro-government National Resistance Forces, also said he had moved his command centre on the west coast to a “safe location”.
He added that his forces had paid “a heavy price in recent days in the face of a Houthi offensive that was planned and supported by Iran”.
A Yemeni military source told AFP news agency that Houthi fighters had also seized Zuqar Island in the Red Sea, about 80km north-west of Mokha, after launching a barrage of rockets and a ground assault using boats.
Meanwhile, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, urged Arab states and other countries to help protect Yemen’s coasts and restore state control.
The Houthis’ Supreme Political Council asserted its “right to defend [Yemen’s] sovereignty and territorial waters while simultaneously reassuring the international community that navigation in the Red Sea remains safe”.
However, the Houthi-run humanitarian operations co-ordination centre also stressed that the embargo on Saudi ships remained in place.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said Saudi warplanes carried out 64 strikes across the western provinces of Taiz, Hudaydah, Marib and Jawf over the previous 24 hours.
There was no immediate comment from the Saudi military.
However, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states fighting in Yemen said on Wednesday evening that it would respond to a series of Houthi missile and drone attacks on the south-western Saudi cities of Khamis Mushait, Abha and Jazan.
On Tuesday, the Houthis launched dozens of drones and missiles at southern Saudi Arabia, injuring 73 civilians and causing fires at several oil facilities that led to a temporary halt in operations, according to Saudi authorities.
The Houthis said they were retaliating for dozens of Saudi air strikes on territory they control in recent days, including one on a prison in the town of Hazm in Jawf province on Monday that they said killed at least 23 civilians.
The Saudi-led coalition has backed Yemen’s government against the Houthis in the country’s devastating civil war for more than a decade.
A four-year-old informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis said they were retaliating for a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom.
