ع
Yemen’s provincial media office reported that an attack by the Houthi movement on a government security forces training camp in Shabwa province killed 73 people, raising the toll from the previous day’s strike as fighting intensifies across the country. Fourteen people remained missing following the incident, according to the same office. Local authorities said three ballistic missiles hit security forces on Monday during a training exercise at the al-Alam camp, with video from the scene showing injured people and bloodied bodies scattered on the ground.
Provincial governor Awad al-Wazir stated that more than 200 people were injured in the strike on the camp near Ataq city, where new recruits aged between 18 and 20 were undergoing training to provide security in the province rather than for combat operations. The recruits came from across Shabwa, with at least 15 of those killed belonging to a single Yemeni tribe, a government official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Hospitals in the province were overwhelmed, forcing transfers of the seriously wounded to facilities in neighbouring Hadramout and Aden.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed the camp was run by Saudi forces and that the strike targeted Saudi enemy mobilisations there, resulting in dozens of dead and wounded including Saudi officers. In a statement, Saree warned Yemenis against responding to Saudi calls to join such camps. Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Houthi allegations.
The Yemeni government described the strike as a treacherous attack on new recruits in the training phase, with President Rashad al-Alimi vowing an immediate hard response and stating that it affirmed the Houthis’ approach of resorting to such attacks when under pressure or when their plots falter. A government spokesperson emphasized that the site was a training centre for internal security forces of Shabwa governorate with no link to current fighting. The attack has prompted an inquiry into how so many troops were left exposed to the Houthi ballistic missile arsenal.
The incident marks the largest single loss of life since Yemen’s civil war reignited in September, when the Houthis advanced towards territory near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key shipping chokepoint. Government forces began a campaign this month to retake Houthi-held areas, recovering ground near the strait while the group besieges Taiz, the last major urban stronghold of anti-Houthi forces in the southern highlands. Shabwa, an energy-rich coastal province overlooking the Gulf of Aden, hosts the Balhaf liquefied natural gas facility, Yemen’s largest industrial investment.
In a related development the day before the camp strike, a Saudi airstrike on a home in the Houthi-controlled northern province of Saada killed at least nine people including five children and two women, according to Houthi-run media. Houthi forces have cut the road between government-run Shabwa and the Houthi-run Bayda governorate as clashes continue. The escalation follows the collapse of a years-long truce between the Iran-aligned Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.
