More than 1,000 prisoners escape from jail in Yemen's third largest city as war rages
Over 1,000 prisoners escaped from a jail as fighting raged in Yemen’s third-largest city between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the country’s ousted president, residents said.
It was at least the third jailbreak since March, when Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels who have seized large parts of Yemen, its neighbour. Those bombings have intensified the violence in the war-torn country.
One of those three jailbreaks, in the city of Mukalla, reportedly freed scores of al-Qaeda members. But residents of the southern city of Taiz said they did not believe Tuesday’s incident led to the release of such militants.
Residents provided varying reports of the latest mass escape. Abdulqader Aljunaid, a doctor and political activist in Taiz, said that it occurred after Houthi rebels were attacked by fighters loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. After the Houthi rebels fled their camp, they broke into the city’s prison and released 1,200 inmates, he said.
Abdulqaher Alkhurasani, a lawyer with close connections to security forces, said he had been told by officials that over 3,000 inmates had fled the prison. He said local fighters had reported that the Houthis had shelled the area around the jail, destroying its main gate and permitting the prisoners to slip out.
He said that alleged al-Qaeda members “are normally not imprisoned in Taiz.”
The Houthis themselves provided a different narrative. Salim Mughalis, a Houthi political officer in Taiz, said that pro-Hadi forces were the ones who sprung the prisoners from jail.
Ahmed Albasha, a freelance journalist in Taiz, offered yet another account. He said that inmates in the prison yard took advantage of the chaotic situation as fighting erupted in the area on Tuesday. They dug a hole near a wall of the prison and some escaped, he said. When the Houthis seized the area, they freed others, he said.
The Houthis toppled Hadi’s US-backed government in February and pressed south, prompting the president to flee the country. Saudi Arabia has been alarmed by the Houthi advances since it sees the rebels as proxies of Shiite Iran.
