Arabic version: تصاعد القتال في تعز مع ضغط الحوثيين على المداخل الغربية

According to BBC News, Saudi-backed pro-government forces are battling Houthi fighters in the mountains south-west of Taiz, where a drone overhead was followed about 10 minutes later by strikes. The front line is difficult to define in the area, where homes on the slopes have been abandoned and incoming and outgoing fire can be heard.

Fighting around Taiz has intensified since the Houthis seized the strategic Red Sea port of Mokha, 85km west of the city, on 10 September. The group also took territory overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a shipping corridor linking Europe and Asia. Government forces hold central Taiz, while Houthi positions are to the north and east; recent heavy fighting has focused on western high ground overlooking the city’s southern route.

At a checkpoint near the front, a fighter said the bodies of 18 government soldiers were in an area his unit could fire across but could not reach. The Houthis are using drones alongside other weapons, the report said. Saudi Arabia leads a coalition backing the Yemeni government with weapons and has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Houthi positions on the Red Sea coast.

At al-Thawra hospital in Taiz, an intensive care unit was full of casualties from the front lines, including civilians. Twelve-year-old Ghana Nabeel was seriously injured by shrapnel after her family said a Houthi mortar landed nearby while she was herding goats. A doctor said her brain had been damaged.

Displacement has also increased. At al-Monig camp, about 20km south of Taiz, 200 families were reported to have arrived in 10 days after fleeing Mokha and villages affected by fighting. On 22 September, the UN refugee agency said more than 130,000 people had been displaced across Yemen so far that month, in addition to 5.2 million already displaced by the civil war, and warned a further 100,000 could be forced from their homes over the next three months.