Full Breakdown
Intensified Fighting Around Taiz After Houthis Capture Mokha
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Escalation Following the September 10 Seizure
On 10 September, Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mokha, a key node on the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The loss of the port has spurred a sharp increase in combat on the western approaches to Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city. Saudi-backed government troops and Houthi fighters are now contesting high ground that overlooks the main road south of Taiz. The Houthis have deployed drones and missiles more extensively, while Saudi-led coalition aircraft continue to conduct air strikes on Houthi positions along the coast.
Front-Line Conditions and Casualties
Witnesses describe a “no-man’s-land” of mountains where artillery and drone strikes erupt without clear targeting. A government soldier reported seeing the bodies of 18 of his comrades lying in an area his unit could fire over but not retrieve. A local resident, Ali, said two mortars landed on his property, prompting him to send his children to a displacement camp. In the city’s main hospital, intensive-care beds were fully occupied with both combatants and civilians.
Humanitarian Toll and Displacement
The conflict has forced families to flee repeatedly. At the al-Monig displacement camp, 200 families arrived in the preceding ten days. One mother, using the pseudonym Maryam Saleh, recounted losing a nephew to mortar shrapnel while escaping Mokha. On 22 September, the United Nations refugee agency reported that more than 130,000 people had been displaced across Yemen that month, adding to the 5.2 million already uprooted by the civil war. The agency warned that another 100,000 could be forced from their homes within three months.
Voices from the Front
> “I have nothing… no shelter, no mattress, no family. Nothing.” — Fatma Mohammed Saleh, a disabled woman crawling to safety after her village was overrun.
Official Positions
Iran has denied supplying weapons to the Houthis, stating it only offers political support. Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners continue to justify air strikes as necessary to counter Houthi advances, while UN experts have highlighted the ongoing recruitment of child soldiers by the Houthis despite a 2022 UN-brokered action plan to end the practice.