Fleeing the frontline: Yemeni families recount harrowing escape from Houthi advance

Mukalla, Yemen – When waves of Yemeni government forces started to flee the front lines near al-Khokha, a Red Sea town between Hodeidah and Mocha, two of Saeed Hassan’s sons rushed to alert their father about the unusual troop movements.

“I told them that it could be a tactical withdrawal and that there was nothing to worry about,” Saeed, 58, told Al Jazeera at a flat in Yemen’s southern city of Mukalla, where he and several related families have taken refuge.

By that evening of September 9, his sons returned and confirmed that large numbers of soldiers were withdrawing from their positions. Saeed decided to leave his house and see for himself.

“I was shocked by the huge number of soldiers and military equipment that was withdrawing,” he said.

By the evening, Saeed decided to flee his home, but first he had to persuade his brother Mohammed and his family to join him.

“I only believed them when they went out, filmed the withdrawal and showed me the video,” Mohammed, 47, told Al Jazeera.

About the same time, a missile hit a nearby camp for displaced people, wounding several. Mohammed’s son Shaker went to see what had happened and narrowly escaped death when another explosion hit the area.

“He saw a wounded man whose leg had been severed,” Mohammed said.

A week earlier, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis had launched one of their largest military offensives against forces loyal to the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in the western governorates of Hodeidah and Taiz. The Houthis heavily shelled government-held areas before their fighters advanced.

On September 9, government forces withdrew from Mocha, the main base of the government’s National Resistance Forces, allowing the Houthis to seize the coastal city and other areas, including al-Khokha. The following day, the Houthis completed their offensive on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, essentially taking control of the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

Fearing that the Houthis were about to arrive in their town, Saeed’s and Mohammed’s families fled al-Khokha as fast as they could. It had become their home after they were displaced from the countryside near the port of Hodeidah in 2018. Hodeidah has been a key target of both sides in Yemen’s war since Houthi forces captured the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014, forcing Yemeni government forces to flee south.

For Saeed’s and Mohammed’s families, it meant another journey out of a warzone.

“We just took the things that we could carry,” Saeed said about his second displacement.

Mohammed and his wife made a living trading clothes, but they could not carry the piles of merchandise stored at their home. They took only their documents, some personal clothing and a few other light belongings.

The brothers planned to spend the night in neighbouring Mocha before returning to their village the following day to collect the rest of their belongings. But the speed of the Houthi advance forced them to move as soon as possible.

“I told her, ‘Let’s take whatever luggage we can, and we’ll come back for the rest tomorrow,’” Mohammed said.

Saeed loaded luggage into his small pick-up truck and left with his wife, his two sons and their wives, his daughter and her baby.

Mohammed travelled in another pick-up with his wife, a relative and their luggage. He later picked up three men who appeared to be fleeing soldiers. The families departed about 9:30pm.

Shortly after they left, they were told locals had dismantled their homes, built from corrugated metal sheets and tarpaulin, which were stolen along with their belongings.

On the road, Saeed saw soldiers abandoning their weapons as explosions and gunfire erupted around them.

“I saw soldiers leaving behind brand-new cannon that had not even fired a single shot,” he said.

The families had fled their homes without any water, expecting to find some along the way. But grocery stores were empty, and a while later, the situation got worse when a tyre on Mohammed’s truck blew out.

His brother couldn’t wait and continued towards Mocha without him. “The car was about to flip over, and we could have died. I replaced the damaged tyre with another one that was already crumbling,” he said.

“The explosions were intensifying, and the three people with me kept asking me to hurry, fearing that the Houthis would catch up with us.”

Saeed arrived in Mocha about midnight, only to find the city abandoned. Vehicle after vehicle carrying retreating soldiers from the battlefields drove by, bypassing Mocha and heading straight for Aden, a port city on the Gulf of Aden. Saeed decided to follow them, but along the way, he and his family witnessed harrowing scenes.

The remains of soldiers killed in Houthi missile and drone attacks lay on the roadside alongside abandoned weapons and ammunition. The family narrowly escaped missiles targeting the retreating forces.

“I saw soldiers taking off their military uniforms while others threw away their weapons or buried them in the sand,” Mohammed said. He believed the soldiers feared being captured by the Houthis so were trying to hide their identities.

“My wife cried in shock when she saw the upper half of a person’s body. We saw young and old people walking along the road while fleeing soldiers sometimes passed them in empty vehicles without stopping to pick anyone up.”

Meanwhile, Mohammed was also driving south. After leaving the Thubab district and approaching Ras al-Arah and the southern governorates the following morning, the disintegrating replacement tyre on his truck also went flat.

Hungry, thirsty and exhausted after a sleepless night, Mohammed carried the tyre along the road in search of a repair shop. Panicked drivers passed him by, refusing to delay their journey by stopping and giving him a ride to the next village. He did not return to his family until about 3pm.

“Shops were closed, and we could not find water. My wife got out of the car and stood by the road, asking people to give us some water,” Mohammed said. “Only one person who was travelling with a large family stopped and poured some water into her cupped hands.”

By now, Mocha was in the Houthis’ hands, and they were advancing towards the Thubab district. Explosions were rocking the area.

Saeed, who was about three hours ahead of his brother along the same road, approached the traffic-jammed main entrance to Yemen’s southern governorates by 10am. Armed forces deployed there to defend Aden were preventing retreating soldiers from crossing with their weapons.

Saeed queued for more than two hours at a restaurant to buy a meal of chicken and rice for his family. “The prices had doubled, and the food was not enough. It just kept our hunger at bay,” he said.

By evening, Saeed had crossed into Aden, where he was guided to a school sheltering displaced people. Eight families were crammed into a single room.

“They told us that only women were allowed to stay in the room, so I left my family there so they could get some rest, and I slept outside in the open,” Saeed said.

Mohammed arrived at the outskirts of Aden by the night of September 10, and after finding no provisions, a soldier gave the family a bottle of water.

“He felt sorry for us and gave us the water when we told him that we had not eaten or drunk anything,” Mohammed said.

He was also met by throngs of soldiers outside the southern city, many of them trying to get rid of their rifles.

“I saw some soldiers selling their weapons for 500 Saudi riyals [$133.33] while others simply abandoned them. They were terrified,” Mohammed said.

On September 11, Mohammed finally managed to find a hotel room in Aden, where, exhausted from the journey, he fell straight into a deep sleep.

The brothers described their experience as a miracle. They said they had little fuel for their gas-run trucks when they set out but the vehicles managed to take them about 300km (185 miles) from al-Khokha to Aden without stopping for fuel once.

“The fuel warning light was on, and the car had only half a cylinder of gas left,” Saeed said. His face, covered with a white beard, broke into a smile as he recounted the journey. His brother described a similar experience.

On the afternoon of September 12, the brothers passed through a checkpoint east of Aden and headed to neighbouring Abyan governorate, where they stayed with a relative in Lawdar.

By now, their cars were without gas, so they could not continue their journey to the southern city of Mukalla. They had to wait two days to source enough fuel to leave, and on September 14, they set off for Mukalla.

By 2am the next day, Saeed’s car broke down in Hura, a coastal area of Shabwa governorate. With repair shops closed, he woke up a local mechanic at his home who repaired his vehicle.

Both families eventually reached the western outskirts of Mukalla, their final destination, on September 16, a week after fleeing their homes.

The two brothers and their families now rent a three-room flat for 400 Saudi riyals ($106.66) a month. They paid another 400 riyals for a deposit and 200 riyals ($53.33) in commission to a local estate agent who found them the flat.

In the two weeks since their arrival, neither brother has managed to find work and are surviving on their savings, which they fear will run out soon.

“No one has helped us, and we haven’t even had breakfast today. We skip meals to save money,” Mohammed said. “I went out looking for any job, but I couldn’t find one. I am a day labourer and can do anything, keeping bees, climbing palm trees or carrying stones.”

The Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps, a government body that documents and tracks displacement in Yemen, said in its latest report last week that since early September, 197,906 people, or 29,519 families, had been displaced.

This figure was up from about 100,000 people two weeks earlier after the Houthis began their Red Sea offensive. Most of the displaced were staying in Taiz governorate.

Mohammed Awadh, the head of the government unit in Taiz, told Al Jazeera that displaced people of all ages had arrived in the governorate with little more than the clothes on their backs. With the displaced lacking even the most basic necessities, Awadh said his unit is working with local authorities in Mukalla to establish a camp.

“The displaced people arrived in Mukalla leaving everything they owned behind. Consequently, they are in need of even the most basic assistance,” he said.

“Among them are the elderly, the infirm, and pregnant and nursing women,” he said.

Mohammed’s wife, Fatima, said her biggest concern is neither accommodation nor a lack of food but how to repay the clothing traders who have been chasing her for owed money.

“My biggest concern is paying back my 12-million-riyal [$8,000] debt to the clothing traders,” Fatima said. “I go to the mosque and pray that God will help me. I don’t want to die before paying it back.”