The governor of Al-Hudaydah province in Yemen Abdulla Abu Ghaith has confirmed that more than 2.5 million people in the province, which is located on the Red Sea coast, are at risk of starvation, poverty and homelessness due to the intransigence of rebel militias and their insistence on completely restricting daily life there.

Abu Ghaith told Asharq Al-Awsat that the rebels procure more than 15 billion Yemeni riyals ($ 60 million) a month from ships and customs at the port of Al-Hudaydah. Despite this, they have imposed a suffocating blockade on the population and are preventing local, regional and international organisations from providing assistance and saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who are suffering from widespread famine in the province.

The matter does end there – according to the governor of Al-Hudaydah, “The rebels have imposed a financial tax and are extorting citizens in the name of supporting the war effort and the Central Bank which they financially ruined and plundered”.

Abu Ghaith revealed that the latest statistics confirm that 82 per cent of the province’s population is suffering from famine, i.e. 2,500,000 of the province’s residents are hungry, poor or homeless. He continued by saying that according to statistics from 2016, the population of Al-Hudaydah is 3,860,102. At the beginning of the coup, the province received 300,000 displaced people from other provinces, and around 20,000 people have fled from the difficult conditions and threats in Al-Hudaydah.

Abu Ghaith said that “The militia is suppressing and severely restricting life in the province” and that “If the situation is not rectified quickly and the lives of millions saved, the real disaster will be the fate of families and innocents who are worried by the famine”.