Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Yemen Coupists Bomb Village in Taiz, Displace Civilians | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A boy walks on a street littered with cooking gas cylinders after a fire and explosions destroyed a nearby gas storage during clashes between fighters of the Popular Resistance Committees and Houthi fighters, in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taiz July 19, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer/Files


Taiz- A woman was killed and another three wounded in Yemen’s Marib province on Thursday as coup militias bombarded residential compounds inhabited by displaced people, reported local witnesses.

“The woman died after being transferred to the hospital, one of the other wounded also miscarried after a compound where over 200 families live,” said witnesses.

Head of a local committee reported that militias had woven a web of landmines across civilian neighborhoods in an attempt for driving remaining inhabitants out of the village of Khor, located on the outskirts west of the province of Taiz.

The village was bombed indiscriminately after a three-day-long siege “forcing Yemenis to flee their homes which later were made into insurgency militant posts and arms warehouses,” reported the committee head.

More so, Iran-allied Houthi militias and armed forces backing ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh forcibly displaced the residents of the last town in the outskirts of al-Rabiee, West of Taiz.

Local activists quoted some of the displaced families as saying that rebels forced them and other families to leave their village Khor under armed threat.

Coup militias continue their crimes and humane violations against unarmed civilians in various Yemeni cities and governorates under their control.

The displaced families also said that rebels threatened to blow up occupied houses if they do not leave, adding that they also opened fire on them to force them to flee.

The Wethaq Foundation, a non-governmental organization, described the militias’ practices against civilians in Khor as inhumane.

Arafat saeed Rafid, Director of Information and Training Center for Human Rights, told Asharq Al-Awsat that “ Houthis carry out systematic displacement of Yemenis across many Taiz villages, and residents of the village of Khor are the most recent victims.”

“According to preliminary statistics, 15 families were forced to escape to neighboring villages,” he said.

The Center for Human Rights Information and Training called on the United Nations, “in particular the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, international organizations and all persons of conscience, to act swiftly to stop an imminent new massacre of unarmed civilians in Taiz and to stop systematic and forced displacement by militias.”

“What these militias are doing account for horrendous war crimes,” said Rafid.

“The international community must stop its shameful silence and stand up against human rights violators and war criminals and prevent further crimes against civilians in Taiz and Yemen in general.”