Rights group urge Iran-backed Houthis to end blockade of Yemen’s 3rd largest city

CAIRO — Sixteen rights groups urge Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end their siege of the country’s third-largest city, as the internationally recognized government said an overnight rebel attack killed at least 10 troops.

The groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, say in a joint statement that the Houthi blockade of Taiz has severely restricted freedom of movement and impeded the flow of essential goods, medicine and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents.

“Houthi restrictions have forced civilians to use dangerous and poorly maintained mountain roads that are the only connection between Taiz city’s besieged population and the rest of the world,” says Michael Page, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

The Houthis have imposed a siege on the government-held Taiz, the capital of the province by the same name, since March 2016. The southwestern city is the junction of two crucial highways: an east-west road leading to the coastal city of Mocha on the Red Sea, and another north-south, to Sanaa via Dhamar and Ibb provinces.

The joint statement says Houthi-manned checkpoints prevented residents from bringing in essential items such as fruit, vegetables, cooking gas, dialysis treatment packets, and oxygen cylinders. They also “unlawfully confiscated some of these items,” it says.

“The siege of Taiz has become nothing more than a card on the negotiating table,” says Radhya Al-Mutwakel, chairperson of Mwatana for Human Rights.

Reopening the roads of Taiz and other provinces are part of the UN-brokered truce between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government, which initially took effect in early April and was extended twice, the second time until early October.

Both sides reported violations of the cease-fire but the truce has been the longest lull of fighting in Yemen’s war, now in its eighth year.