Government troops on Sunday briefly recaptured a strategic town in Yemen’s Marib province, home to an oil and gas fields. That came after rebels in the Houthi movement moved into the area over the weekend and opened fire on government forces, causing some casualties.
Marib province, which is on the main eastern border with Saudi Arabia, shares a border with a Red Sea port currently controlled by Saudi Arabia. The area is home to a string of pipelines and tanks that produce about 70 percent of Yemen’s energy.
The Houthis are battling to take control of both Marib and Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and have advanced south toward the capital. The rebels insist that Yemen’s oil and gas fields are rightfully theirs and that President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government is illegitimate.
The fighting in Marib highlights the rapidly deteriorating situation in Yemen, which is being severely impacted by two long-running warring factions and a humanitarian crisis. Fuel supplies are dwindling, hospitals are short on medicine and the United Nations estimates that 2 million Yemeni children could be at risk of starving to death before the end of the year.
Read the full story at the New York Times.
Related
Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen slaughters family of 10, injures 51
Another 2 million children could starve to death in Yemen before year’s end
Second U.S. citizen comes forward as victim of alleged Houthi war crimes