Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Ramadan Fails to Stop another Massacre in Taiz | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Ongoing pounding of Taiz, Asharq Al-Awsat


Taiz- Jeddah- Thirty people were killed and injured including three families that were completely wiped out in a frenzied attack staged by insurgency in Taiz.

Before dusk set, and those fasting could break their fast and quench their thirst, the ground was far soaked with blood. Yemenis drained out drop by drop in quest for peace, which the Houthis and ally ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh refuse.

The insurgency overlooks the holy month of Ramadan, in which most Muslim Yemenis offer a day’s fast to Allah for a month. Scores of victims and injured people who had sided with the government were cruelly attacked on Monday.

Taiz awoke on Monday to the sounds of whole families being slaughtered by Insurgency attacks; Houthis had escalated military operations in the third largest city in Yemen. Butchering their way through the city and using all sorts of artillery, pounding residential compounds in Taiz inhumanly, the Insurgency showed true disregard to civilian life.

Sources considered the attacks a retaliation for the governmental delegation making progress at the Yemeni peace talks held in Kuwait.

The attacks took place only hours after the government’s delegation presented a roadmap on normalizing Taiz. The proposition included eight topics to be fulfilled, chiefly indicating that the insurgency militia must abandon the city immediately, halt all military operations and cessation of hostilities against civilians.

At the peace talks, government’s delegation demanded that maps of planted minefields in Taiz be delivered, so that mine neutralization teams can be formed to clear the area for aid delivery later.

Military sources said that the Popular Resistance was able to avert the attack staged by the insurgency militias in Taiz, forcing the militias to eventually retreat across each of the southern and western city fronts.

The Popular Resistance clarified that the militias are exploiting the holy month of Ramdan, given that the fighters would be fasting and weakened. The insurgency is staging a series of attacks to distract civilians away from their religious due diligence.

Pro-legitimacy commander Ayman Al-Mekhlaf in Taiz told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Houthi militias and their allies are incessantly committing crimes and staging bloodbaths against the innocents of Taiz.

“We have awakened to the first day of the holy month of Ramadan with a massacre of an entire family at hand; in which a mother and five kids were all killed. Moreover, another 24 left injured. All this confirms the violence of the militias and their tactlessness to religious morality and international law,” Mekhlafi said.

“Insurgency militias have become accustomed to bloodshed and murdering the innocent, all those butcheries stand to prove that the end of those militias is near, the wild massacres are proof to bankruptcy,”

“Taiz has left the militias desperate and frustrated–the city proving to stand strong for over a year now teaching militias numerous lessons on heroism and resilience,” Mekhlafi added.