Yemenis took to boats in the Red Sea to escape fighting between Iran-backed Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed forces, as the spreading Middle East war created new threats to global oil supplies.
“The sea was wavy. The children were getting seasick; everyone… is not used to the sea,” said Ahmad Hassan, 70, who reached Africa in a crowded boat and gave an interview to the International Organisation for Migration.
He had fled his village after Houthi fighters arrived and it came under airstrikes: “The longer we stayed, the worse things got, the shops closed and there was no more food to buy.”
The IOM says more than 100,000 Yemenis have been displaced by the latest fighting, mostly within Yemen.
Houthi-controlled television reported fresh Saudi air strikes on Thursday in Hajjah province close to the Saudi border near the Red Sea coast, and the vicinity of Taiz further inland to the south.
The Houthis, who have seized Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast since last week in a lightning advance, say the Saudi Air Force has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in recent days. They in turn have fired missiles and drones at targets across the border.
On Wednesday, the Houthis said they had shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet. Video they released overnight showed fighters shouting “Allahu Akbar” in the charred wreckage of a crash site and holding up a piece of a military aircraft wing bearing Saudi insignia.
The spread of the Middle East war to Yemen and Saudi Arabia threatens to worsen the global energy supply shortage caused since the United States and Israel attacked Iran in February.
Global crude prices have hovered this week between $100 and $110 a barrel, the highest levels since May, and the cost of fuel for consumers and industry has risen even more sharply. The average retail price of diesel in the United States set a new all-time record on Thursday just shy of $6.40 a gallon.
US President Donald Trump has so far rebuffed pleas from the Saudis for military support fighting the Houthis, who agreed a ceasefire with the United States last year after Washington bombed the group for two months.
