Fighting has escalated in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, the last redoubt of loyalists to Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the exiled president, with Houthi rebels reportedly seizing the presidential palace, and Saudi Arabia refusing to rule out a ground invasion of its embattled neighbour.
As the conflict progressed, aid workers warned of an imminent food crisis and a lack of medical supplies in Yemen, the poorest Arab country, part of a broader humanitarian crisis that threatens to unravel the fragile state.
“The issue of using ground troops is always something that is on the table,” Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to the US, said, according to Reuters.
Houthi fighters and troops loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president who was ousted in 2012 after Arab spring-style protests, battled their way into the heart of Aden on Thursday despite a week of punishing air raids by a Saudi-led coalition that is seeking to stem their advance.
The presidential palace, a cluster of colonial-era villas perched atop a rocky hill that juts into the Arabian Sea, was Hadi’s last bastion before he fled to Saudi Arabia last month. Yemeni security officials quoted by the Associated Press said it had fallen into rebel hands.
A resident of Aden whose son was killed battling the Houthis told the Guardian by telephone that violent street battles were raging throughout the city, with local popular committees and young people fighting disorganised street battles and resisting the advancing rebels.
“They learned street fighting from the Americans to combat al-Qaida and now they have turned against the people,” he said of Saleh’s troops, which are aiding the Houthis.
He said there was no organised leadership of the Aden residents taking on the Houthis, and that his home had been partially burned as a result of the Houthi and Saleh fighters firing indiscriminately.
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Residents of Aden’s central Crater district told Reuters that Houthi fighters and their allies were in control of the area by midday on Thursday, deploying tanks and foot patrols through its otherwise empty streets after heavy fighting in the morning.
The Houthi advance appears to be aimed at seizing as much ground as possible to strengthen their hand in any future power-sharing negotiations, but it is unclear if they can hold the city, given the presence of homegrown resistance to their rule and the ongoing street battles.
Their progress also threatens an escalation by Saudi Arabia, which has not ruled out a ground invasion. The coalition, which is backed by the US, also includes Egypt, most of the Gulf states, and Pakistan.
However, senior US military official in Washington played down the possibility that Saudi Arabia would send in ground forces.
“I don’t think they’re going to do that. I think they are arraying their forces along their border to prevent a Houthi incursion,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They’re postured defensively.”
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led states in the region are concerned about Iran’s growing sphere of influence in the Middle East, and accuse the Houthis of being puppets of the Islamic republic, which has opposed the Yemeni operation, known as Decisive Storm.
Brig Gen Ahmad Asiri, the coalition’s Saudi spokesman, told a press briefing on Wednesday that the operation would continue, saying fighter jets had targeted Houthi-held ballistic missiles, air defences and weapons depots, and troop positions backing the Aden assault. He added that the coalition did not do so inside the city to avoid civilian casualties.
Asiri also accused the Houthis of bombing al-Mazraq refugee camp, where at least 29 people were killed on Tuesday, saying the coalition was not responsible for the attack.
He said the coalition’s naval assets had taken full control of the waters surrounding Yemen to enforce a blockade on the Houthis.
He also said a Saudi soldier was killed in an attack on a border post near northern Yemen, the coalition’s first casualty.
The Aden resident who asked not to be named urged the coalition to “take responsibility” and land troops to remove the Houthis from the city.
He said: “Our hope is great in God and our brothers, that they are responsible. They took us into war and only used planes but if they land well-trained forces these militias would be routed.”
He said the humanitarian situation in the city was tragic and his son would have survived the wounds he sustained in fighting if there had been medical supplies and specialist doctors still in the city.
Action Against Hunger, one of the few organisations still operating in Yemen, said the humanitarian situation was “dire and worsening daily”, and it was all but impossible to import basic food staples because of airport and port closures and the no-fly zone over the country.
Hajir Maalim, the organisation’s country director, who is in Yemen, told the Guardian the country was facing a “humanitarian catastrophe” amid signs of food shortages in the cities including Sana’a, the capital.
Yemen had 850,000 children under five who suffered from acute malnutrition; 160,000 of those were severely malnourished and needed immediate care or they faced the risk of death, he said.
In addition, mothers suffering from malnutrition were increasingly vulnerable as the fighting escalated, he said, adding that the country faced additional challenges providing nutrition because Yemen relied on imports for 90% of its food, a particular problem given the ongoing blockade on the country and the continued fighting.
He said more Yemenis were likely to risk fleeing the country by boat or becoming internal refugees, traveling to remote villages with little access to basic services.
The UN high commissioner for refugees said 32 Yemenis had already arrived in Somalia, taking refuge from the fighting.
Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that it was “facing real difficulties sending in more supplies and personnel due to the closure of ports and airports, and due to the active fighting and bombing”.
The organisation said it had treated 580 wounded people in its emergency surgical unit in Aden over seven different waves of mass casualties.
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