Between two cities separated by lines of fire in southwestern Yemen, a paradox is evident that is opposite to the traditional logic of wars. Al-Turbah, the city under the full military control of the Houthis, has turned into an area of stagnation and undeclared boycott, while Taiz, the other besieged city, lives a life that resists all difficulties.
The contrast between the cities of Taiz, which is besieged by the Houthis from all directions, and the country, which has been under the group’s control for about a month, reflects a complex scene that summarizes the nature of war and societal resistance. A completely contradictory economic and social reality is evident between the two cities.
In the city of Al-Turbah, a scene of economic stagnation and severe societal rejection prevails. The local population refuses to normalize the situation with the group’s authority, which has led to a state of almost complete boycott, manifested in an unprecedented stagnation in the markets, and a significant decline in movement during daylight hours, which stops completely during the night, to be replaced by complete silence.
The journey of Ahmed, a pseudonym for a public employee who travels weekly between Taiz and Al-Turbah, summarizes this sharp contradiction in life. As he began to live obsessed with fear for his personal security as soon as he left Taiz, while he was consumed by constant anxiety for his family settled under the authority of the Houthis in Al-Turbah.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that this situation pushes him seriously to consider the option of moving his family to besieged Taiz if Houthi control continues for a long time, preferring the harsh living siege to living under the weight of the security grip and the community wall there.
Speaking about the details of this transformation, he recounts how the features of his weekly vacation, which he used to spend with his family and friends, changed: “The house is immersed in constant tension, and his three children are now deprived of going to school, and they face an unknown educational future,” while the atmosphere that he used to spend at night with his friends, whether in homes or cafes, disappeared, with movement stopping completely at sunset.
Life doesn't stop
In light of these developments, the Office of Education in Taiz Governorate renewed a previous decision to suspend studies in public and private schools in the districts controlled by the Houthi group, holding the directors of the education departments and school principals responsible for violating the instructions, in conjunction with the Community Educational Committee in the rural districts calling on parents and school administrations to adhere to the decision in order to preserve the safety of students.
The committee warned of the dangers of using educational facilities for military purposes as weapons depots and gathering and housing headquarters for the group’s members, in addition to attracting and recruiting students.
Quite the opposite, the besieged city of Taiz shows exceptional resilience and continuity of daily life, despite the stifling siege, crises of goods and services, artillery strikes and daily sniping targeting civilians, and it is turning into an attractive center that defies security risks.
Many rural residents are taking advantage of the cessation of battles at some crossing points to enter the city, despite the severe risks surrounding them, in light of Houthi efforts to stifle the movement and push residents to leave.
Salah Ahmed Ghaleb, director of the Office of Siege Affairs in Taiz (a government body), told Asharq Al-Awsat that the residents of the city of Al-Turbah and other areas that recently fell under the control of the Houthi group are practicing civil protest using the means they have, and have resorted to undeclared civil disobedience.
In his speech, he noted that many of them closed their shops or stopped their commercial activities, for fear of being robbed and imposing royalties by the Houthis, while the movement of trade and markets in the city of Taiz was not affected due to the population’s confidence in the state, despite the decline in the supply of goods, and the impact of prices due to the siege.
Government measures
The city of Taiz is witnessing various community activities to confront the siege, the most prominent of which are initiatives to exchange and share food and benefits among families to cover the shortages among them, and to help families who cannot obtain food.
Abdul Rahman Al-Qulaia, director of the Office of Industry and Trade in Taiz, confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that the war and siege caused a real humanitarian catastrophe and a severe shortage in the flow of goods and fuel as a result of the closure of supply routes, which prompted a wide sector of merchants to reduce their investments and resort to saving instead of importing as a result of the high risks.
He revealed that the office had sensed the seriousness of the situation since last May, coinciding with regional tensions and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. In coordination with the Chamber of Commerce and major merchants, he succeeded in securing a stock of goods sufficient for three months, but popular panic and the Houthis’ closure of the city’s only outlet depleted 50 percent of this stock in one week.
The office imposed a state of emergency that required the formation of oversight committees and an operations room around the clock to rationalize the distribution of goods at official prices, according to the government official, in addition to the cooperation of commercial houses by pumping additional food quantities through their agents, which restored the relative stability of food supplies to the besieged city.
However, he warned that all these measures remain temporary and unable to provide a sustainable solution unless the Houthi siege is broken.
Residents express their fears that the Houthi group will escalate its measures against the city, and turn the ports into traps to kidnap those traveling through them.
The Houthi militias have escalated campaigns to attract and recruit private school students in the kidnapped Yemeni capital, Sana'a, exploiting educational institutions to supply the fighting fronts with new fighters and compensate for their continuing human losses, by forcing students to enroll in military courses and threatening school administrations with closure and imposing fines and penalties.
Educational sources in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group’s so-called “jihadist circle,” in coordination with the Ministry of Education in its unrecognized government, launched in recent days a campaign targeting more than 550 private schools in Sanaa and its suburbs, in a new escalation in the exploitation of the educational sector for its military and mobilization agenda.
The sources added that, a few days ago, Houthi supervisors carried out field visits to schools in ten districts in Sanaa, and obligated their administrations to select five students from each school and enroll them in military courses, threatening to close educational institutions and impose punitive measures and fines against those who refused to comply with the directives.
This Houthi targeting has sparked a state of anger and anxiety among teachers, students, and parents, who see this as an extension of the group’s policies aimed at emptying the educational process of its content, after years of subjecting school curricula and activities to ideological mobilization and harnessing educational institutions to serve its military project.
Forced courses
Parents who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat said that their children were taken from the classroom, without their families’ knowledge, to unknown locations, where they were subjected to intellectual mobilization courses and military training, which reinforced their fears that these activities were a prelude to recruiting students and putting them on the front lines.
These fears prompted families to prevent their children from going to the targeted schools, for fear of being subjected to forced recruitment, while private schools witnessed a decline in attendance, amid mounting concern about continued Houthi pressure and raids and the transformation of educational institutions into outlets for recruiting students instead of preparing them academically.
Abdullah, the father of four students from the Maeen area in central Sanaa, says that he was forced to keep two of his children, in the middle and high school levels, at home for fear of being subjected to conscription, after he lost confidence in the school administration’s ability to protect them from Houthi pressures. He found himself facing a harsh choice between depriving them of continuing education or risking being recruited militarily, noting that the majority of families have become afraid to send their children to schools after they have, according to his description, turned into outlets for recruiting students. Subjecting them to military mobilization.
He added: “We sent our children to schools to learn and build their future, not to be pushed to military courses and battle fronts,” indicating that the group’s behavior was no longer limited to imposing its trends on school curricula and activities, but rather extended to pressuring administrations to select students and hand them over to the authorities supervising combat courses.
Pressure on schools
A teacher in a private school in the Al-Sabeen area, south of Sana'a, who asked to remain anonymous, says that private school administrations in Sana'a and its suburbs are currently facing increasing pressure from the group's cultural supervisors to implement directives that attract students and enroll them in military courses, at the expense of academic achievement.
He added that mobilization activities have begun to crowd out the educational process, while teachers hesitate to object to these practices for fear of being exposed to threats or penalties, in light of the militias tightening their control over educational institutions and subjecting their administrations to their directives.
He stressed that schools, which are supposed to provide a safe environment for learning and building the future, are facing increasing interference in their affairs, with mounting pressures aimed at extracting students from school and involving them in activities that are not related to education.
These Houthi movements coincided with the continued deterioration of the educational process in areas under the group’s control, where tens of thousands of teachers and educators have been suffering from salary interruptions for years, in light of policies that have exacerbated living conditions and weakened the ability of schools to perform their educational and pedagogical role.
The humanitarian repercussions of the Houthi escalation in Yemen expanded as the group intensified its targeting of residential gatherings in the countryside of Lahj Governorate and the vicinity of the city of Taiz, according to government sources, at a time when the number of families fleeing areas of confrontation is increasing, and relief organizations are facing growing needs in a country that is already suffering from one of the largest humanitarian crises.
The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that, after their attempts to achieve field progress failed, the Houthis intensified their targeting of villages in the Al-Mudaraba District of Lahj Governorate with missiles and drones on an almost daily basis, forcing hundreds of families to flee and join waves of displacement coming from the western coast and the outskirts of Lahj.
She added that these attacks aim, in her estimation, to put pressure on tribesmen and push them to stop supporting government forces.
In the vicinity of the city of Taiz, sources reported that the Houthis targeted villages in Jabal Sabar with drones and mortar shells, in an attempt to reduce the resistance of government force units and volunteer residents, who during the past days confronted repeated attacks through which the group sought to penetrate the front.
These developments come as Taiz, according to the sources, faces an ongoing siege for 20 days, at a time when the fighting exacerbates the difficulty of civilians’ access to basic services and needs, and increases the burden on local authorities and humanitarian organizations.
Humanitarian warnings
In light of the humanitarian repercussions of the Houthi attacks, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned that the current escalation has exacerbated a prolonged humanitarian crisis, noting that 22.3 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance, including about 5.2 million who were internally displaced before the recent wave of escalation.
The Federation explained, in a recent report, that fighting and insecurity have hindered access to health care, education, markets, and basic supplies, while displaced families arrive at reception areas with limited possessions, and are in need of shelter, household items, food, clean water, and health care.
He pointed out that host communities in turn face great pressure on services and resources, while repeated displacement leads to the deterioration of livelihoods and increased protection risks, and increases the possibility of more families being forced to leave their areas.
The Union stressed the need for humanitarian aid to continue arriving and to provide a flexible response commensurate with changing field needs, especially in areas where security conditions impede the movement of people and supplies.
According to the report, displaced families face interrelated obstacles in obtaining shelter, food, clean water, sanitation, education, and health care. Insecurity and road closures also disrupt markets, supply lines and aid deliveries, while loss of sources of income, depletion of assets and rising prices limit families' ability to purchase their basic needs.
The Union pointed out that isolated communities face more severe restrictions, as maintaining commercial supplies and the continuation of basic services becomes more difficult, at a time when food insecurity exacerbates the fragility of families already suffering from food shortages.
In an indication of the scale of the crisis, the report stated that about 2.2 million children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition nationwide, warning that the continuation of the blockade and the interruption of aid may further deteriorate the situation, especially among young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
He added that repeated displacement depletes families' ability to adapt to crises. A rapid assessment conducted in three displacement sites showed that about 45 percent of the families included in the assessment had previously been displaced.
The report stressed that this percentage reflects the conditions of the families included in the evaluation in the three sites, and should not be generalized to all displaced people in Yemen.
Additional risks
In the context of humanitarian concerns, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned that the loss of property and the instability of livelihoods undermine the ability of families to cope with crises, and increase the risk that they will resort to harmful coping methods, including child labour.
He pointed out that the suffering goes beyond the lack of food and shelter, to include additional difficulties facing families headed by women, children separated from their families, the elderly, people with disabilities, and patients who need regular treatment.
Women and girls also face additional protection risks in areas that lack adequate shelter and sanitation facilities, while people with limited mobility or resources may be unable to leave isolated areas or access basic services.
These warnings reflect the widening gap between humanitarian needs and the ability to meet them, with the continuation of confrontations, repeated displacement, and the disruption of roads and supplies, which are factors that increase the fragility of families and place the communities receiving the displaced to additional burdens.
