Showdown looms in Yemen port city Hodeida as Saudi-led coalition advances

Instead of bringing calm to the besieged Yemeni city, calls for a ceasefire in Hodeida have brought some of the worst violence the vital port has yet faced in the three-year war.

Baseem al-Janani, who lives in the city, said: “The clashes are absolutely crazy right now. I have a headache from the shelling and bombing in the east. People are trapped in their houses for hours at a time because of shrapnel and gunfire. But their houses are not safe either.”

In the past few days, more than 100 air strikes have hit civilian neighbourhoods – five times as many as in the whole of the first week of October, according to Save the Children staff in Hodeida.

Pro-government militias are trying to seize as much ground as possible before fighting is supposed to stop at the end of November, when it is hoped UN-sponsored peace talks will restart in Sweden. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates coalition-backed troops are inching closer to the city’s Houthi rebel-held centre from their current stalemate positions in the southern suburbs and at the airport.

The Houthis, too, have stepped up operations, laying an estimated 1m landmines in anticipation of the coalition attack, code-named Operation Golden Victory. On Tuesday, fighters raided the city’s May 22 hospital – named for Yemen’s national day – and set up sniper positions on the building’s roof, Janani said.