Yemen clashes kill 154 people in two days as cornered Saudi battles Houthi offensive | Gravitas

West Asia remains on edge as fighting between Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni forces supported by Saudi Arabia continues to escalate. In the past two days alone, 154 people have reportedly been killed in Yemen.

Footage released by Houthis shows an alleged Saudi air strike targeting a local market in a village near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Visuals showed people running for cover as flumes of smoke engulfed the air.

According to the Iran-backed group, Saudi Arabia has launched 917 air strikes since the escalation started. It also accused Riyadh of carrying out three air strikes on the strategic port city of Mocha which it seized a few days ago. Houthis claimed that six people died in the strikes, whereas eight others were wounded.

This is not all.

The group alleged that Saudi Arabia targeted a prison in al-Hazm town, which led to the killing of nine recently captured prisoners.

It also added that a mother and her child were killed in separate air strikes in al-Hazm's al-Batin area.

Saudi Arabia is yet to react to these claims, though even as Pakistan and US have rebuffed Saudi's requests to join the war against Houthis, UK has now stepped in to help.

It has agreed to deploy an RAF Voyager air-to-air refuelling aircraft to support Saudi defensive activity.

This aircraft will provide mid-air fuel to Saudi military jets so they can stay airborne longer to intercept Houthi drone and missile attacks.

The UK government justified this move by highlighting that escalating West Asia tensions can have a serious impact in Britain in the form of rising prices, disruption to energy supplies and extra costs for local businesses.

However, UK has still refrained from directly striking Houthis.

Meanwhile, EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated that the bloc's naval mission to protect shipping in Red Sea requires more than ten warships.

Known as Operation Aspides, this mission was launched in 2024 to safeguard vessels from attacks by Houthis.

At present, six warships are a part of this mission.

While drone attacks forced Saudi Arabia to shut its east-west oil pipeline on September 13, it has now restarted operations according to Reuters.

Why is this crucial?

Since the virtual closure of Strait of Hormuz, the country has been using this pipeline to reroute around four million barrels of oil per day to the Yanbu port located on the Red Sea coast.

This accounts for nearly four percent of global oil supply.

As the fighting continues, the foreign ministers of G7 condemned the strikes waged against Saudi Arabia and urged Houthis to immediately cease all military actions and return to the political process in good faith.

They also called on Iran to end its support for this group.

Now, the humanitarian toll of the war in Yemen cannot be understated.

According to the international organisation for migration, a staggering one hundred thirty thousand people have been displaced across seven provinces in Yemen.

This UN agency also added that over three thousand people have crossed the Red Sea and fled to Djibouti.

According to United Nations, an additional one hundred thousand Yemenis could be forced to leave their homes within the next three months.

At one such camp for the displaced people in Yemen, authorities described the extent of the humanitarian crisis...