Ahmed Shaaban (Aden, Cairo)
The Yemeni government confirmed that the Houthi group’s continued imposition of a siege on the city of Taiz is a policy of collective punishment and a full-fledged war crime, which has doubled the suffering of civilians, especially patients, women and children, calling on the international community and the United Nations to exert real pressure on the Houthi to lift the siege immediately.
The Yemeni Minister of Information, Muammar Al-Eryani, said that the continuation of the Houthi group, in imposing a siege on the city of Taiz, targeting millions of the people of the most densely populated governorate in Yemen, is a policy of collective punishment and a full-fledged war crime, entering its ninth year in light of international silence, and the inaction of human rights organizations and bodies. Human.
He explained that the suffocating siege imposed by the Houthi group on Taiz, which caused a humanitarian crisis and suffering that is the largest since the coup, was accompanied by aggression on cities, villages, residential neighborhoods and civilian homes that were bombed with mortars, artillery and missiles, and the deployment of snipers to kill women and children, and the perpetration of dozens of massacres and the planting of mines that left the country dead. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed.
Al-Eryani indicated that as a result of the siege on the city of Taiz, civilian drivers of vehicles, transporters of food and consumer goods, and oil and gas locomotives were forced to take alternative, rugged and unsafe roads, which doubled the suffering of civilians, especially the sick, women and children, and the occurrence of daily accidents that claimed the lives of thousands of citizens and left material losses. big.
He added: The persistence of the Houthi group in the siege of Taiz, its disavowal of implementing the Stockholm Agreement, and its rejection of all offers and initiatives to lift the siege on the province, and turning it into a card for blackmail and bargaining, reflects its hatred of the people of this province, and also confirms the Houthi’s realization of the importance of Taiz in the national battle to restore the state and end the coup. .
Al-Eryani called on the international community, the United Nations and its special envoy to Yemen, human rights organizations and bodies, activists and all free people in the world to condemn this crime, to exert real pressure on the Houthis to lift the deadly siege of Taiz immediately and unconditionally, and to prosecute and hold accountable those responsible for it among the leaders and members of the group in the courts. domestic and international, and to ensure that they do not go unpunished.
Yemeni political analyst Adel Al-Ahmadi said that he visited the city of Taiz 3 times during the past months, and felt suffering in reaching and leaving the besieged city and that it was very difficult, describing the siege as the biggest crime committed by the Houthis since the beginning of the war.
Al-Ahmadi added, in statements to Al-Ittihad, that the Houthis are targeting the punishment of the city that stood up to them and the dismemberment of the country, as the group has cut and closed the “Al-Dhalea” road from Aden to Sana’a as a collective punishment, in addition to the “Makiras” road between Al-Bayda and Lahj, as well as booby traps. road and surrounding area.
For his part, Yemeni writer and political analyst Mahmoud Al-Taher said that the Houthi group is using the siege of Taiz as a means of pressure and negotiation to achieve gains on the ground.
Al-Taher pointed out in a statement to Al-Ittihad that “the Houthi group rejected the legitimate government’s proposals to open roads in Taiz, and at the present time it will not respond to any international or local initiative. Unfortunately, we have reached this stage as a result of international complacency with the Houthi group.”
Yemeni political analyst Dr. Abdulmalik Al-Yousifi revealed that the Houthi group besieged more than four million people in Taiz, delving into its crimes against civilians, children and women, preventing basic needs from reaching them, placing obstacles and working to undermine agreements sponsored by the United Nations.
Al-Yousifi explained in a statement to Al-Ittihad that the Houthi siege of Taiz is a model that reveals the nature of the group that prevents all the requirements of life and means of subsistence, which led to daily suffering for the people in obtaining food and medicine in addition to suffering from movement, and violates economic and social rights and commits killings and sniping against civilians. insulation.
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