Yemen fighting kills more than 300 as Houthis cut the road to Mokha

An AFP count drawn from military and medical sources on both sides put the death toll from the latest fighting in southwest Yemen above 300 by 7 September. Two officials with the internationally recognised government's forces said 84 of their troops were killed between midday on 6 September and the following morning, most by missiles. Four Houthi military sources said 57 of their fighters died in the same hours. Some civilians are in the tally. The figures have not been independently confirmed.

The Houthis opened the offensive on 3 September, aiming to cut the government-held port of Mokha and move toward ground that looks onto the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. A government officer told AFP that by the evening of 6 September the rebels had cut the road between Taiz and Mokha. Fighting has been heaviest in Maqbanah and Jabal Habashi in Taiz governorate.

Families left those districts for camps. Displaced people reached al-Bareen camp on 6 September. The next day AFP journalists saw others arriving at a second camp with mattresses, livestock and timber for shelters. Rawdhah Hasan, who fled Maqbanah, said fire came from above and from below. The UN humanitarian agency estimated about 1,790 households had been displaced in the first days of the push. A running summary of the offensive cited a higher figure of 18,500 people moved. Both numbers can be true at different hours. Neither is a full registration of every family on the road.

Government forces have claimed counter-gains elsewhere. They said they retook the al-Khazan and al-Makahna hills in Jabal Habashi on 4 September, took full control of Hais district in Hodeidah on 6 September, and on 7 September seized Al-Labanat military camp in Al-Jawf while moving toward Al Hazm. Those claims come from one side of the front. Independent reporters have not walked the hills to check them.

The fighting is the deadliest burst in Yemen since a 2022 truce collapsed in July. It also sits inside a wider 2026 war around Iran and the Red Sea. Mokha matters because it is a government foothold on the Red Sea coast. Bab el-Mandeb matters because tanker traffic between Asia and Europe still has to pass that gap if the Suez route is in use. A closed Taiz-Mokha road isolates the port from the highlands that feed it with people and supply.

Civilian harm will grow if the road stays closed. Camps that already hold people from earlier rounds of the civil war are taking new arrivals with little notice. Food, water and sanitation in those camps were thin before this week. Missile use against government units, if the government officers are right about the cause of their 84 dead, points to a Houthi inventory that is still being spent on this front rather than reserved for ships.

The next measurable facts are whether government units reopen the Taiz-Mokha road, whether Hais and Al-Labanat stay in the hands that claim them, and whether the death count, now above 300 in a few days, levels off or keeps climbing. Until those three points are settled, the offensive is a live cut against a Red Sea gateway, not a finished battle.