Eight civilians in Yemen lost their lives due to flooding and lightning strikes, according to information shared by an official and a doctor with newsmen on Saturday. This shows the danger posed by extreme weather in the war-affected region.
Dr. Hamza Saied, a doctor at Al-Layha hospital, reported that lightning strikes occurred in the Al-Layha and Al-Zahra districts of Hodeida governorate on the Red Sea coast last Friday.
‘Six women and a man were killed, and three others were injured,’ he said.
Huthi rebels hold sway over the area after their takeover of the capital in 2014, which prompted a Saudi-led coalition intervention in the subsequent year, unleashing a brutal conflict that the United Nations has classified as one of the most severe humanitarian crises worldwide.
Flooding on Friday had devastating consequences in the neighboring town of Hais, where it claimed the life of a woman and laid waste to numerous homes, as relayed by an anonymous official due to media briefing constraints.
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Hais is situated within the territory under the authority of the internationally recognised government, which is headquartered in the southern city of Aden.
The UN Population Fund disclosed earlier this week that more than 200,000 people in Yemen have been uprooted by extreme weather this year, with a significant proportion of them having already experienced multiple displacements.
‘Heavy rain is now forecast to affect nearly 2 million displaced people over the coming weeks, threatening lives and livelihoods across multiple communities,’ it said.
The war, which has raged on for nearly a decade, has left Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, with its infrastructure in ruins.
The truce, which was enforced in April of the previous year, has continued to hold for the most part, even after its official lapse last October.
Expectations of a longer-lasting ceasefire were rejuvenated on Thursday night when, for the first time since the Saudi-led coalition’s intervention, a Huthi delegation journeyed to Riyadh.