On Saturday, protesters in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz demonstrated against the Houthi militia’s prolonged siege of the city close to a checkpoint they control. To commemorate the 3,000th day since the Houthis’ siege began in the spring of 2015, Yemenis have also created an internet campaign.
In order to protest the siege, which has been in place for more than eight years, and to call for international intervention, dozens of Yemenis formed a line along the eastern entrance to Taiz that is under Houthi control.
People carried placards denouncing the UN and the international community in general for permitting the Houthis to maintain the blockade. Additionally, they showed pictures of individuals navigating dangerously steep roads to get around the city’s swarm of checks.
One of the signs stated, “Taiz’s siege is the crime of the century.”
Another English-language post said, “Save humanity in Taiz.”
In the middle of 2015, the Houthis besieged the third-largest city in Yemen, months after engaging in bloody warfare with Yemeni army soldiers and allies who were defending the city with the backing of the Arab coalition.
The Houthis surrounded the city’s key exits in order to compel the population to submit. This prevented anyone from leaving or entering the city and halted the flow of supplies and humanitarian aid.
A social media effort to commemorate the 3,000th day of the siege and to raise awareness of the situation of people inside has been supported by many Taiz locals, Yemeni leaders, politicians, activists, and others.
Human rights advocate Eshraq Al-Maqtari, who is based in Taiz, claimed that the Houthi blockade has had a serious effect on the city’s citizens, with many of them dying in automobile accidents while attempting to flee or enter the city on dangerous routes.
She berated the world community for not doing enough to break the siege.
“The inhabitants of Taiz have suffered various sorts of torture for the past 3,000 days. They have walked across it using perilous mountain roads while just carrying the necessities on their backs: food, medicine, and oxygen for the patients. The entire world is quietly watching our struggles, she remarked on Twitter.
Aqeel Al-Samei, a campaign participant who spoke to Arab News from the city, compared the Houthi checkpoints to the Berlin Wall and claimed that the Al-Hawban road, which is under Houthi control, “separates families, depriving children of fathers, sons of mothers, and patients of hospitals.”
The authorities of Yemen have vowed to use force or diplomacy to lift the siege. The head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, lauded Yemenis’ efforts to lift the blockade.
We reaffirm our steadfast dedication to provide the city’s fascist militia’s siege a swift conclusion, Al-Alimi added.
The Houthis were required to remove the siege in accordance with a truce brokered by the UN that went into effect in April of last year in exchange for the Yemeni government permitting the restart of commercial flights from Sanaa airport and the entry of fuel ships into Hodeidah port.
But up to this point, all the Houthis have constructed is a little, muddy road leading into and out of Taiz.
A member of the presidential council named Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh stated that the Houthis will only be defeated militarily before the siege of Taiz is lifted.
The Houthi age of tyranny will come to an end and vanish in the same way as other ruthless militias and terrorist groups, Saleh claimed. “The siege of Taiz will be broken by the guns of men,” he added.
