DUBAI: More than 50 people were killed and over 200 wounded when Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck a military camp in the energy-rich Shabwa province with ballistic missiles, officials and military sources said on Monday.
The attack was the deadliest in weeks as fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised, Saudi-supported government escalated following the collapse of a years-long truce.
“More than 53 recruits” were killed and over 200 injured, all of them new members of the internal security forces undergoing training, Shabwa authorities said in a statement.
Three ballistic missiles struck al-Alam camp in Shabwa, two military sources said. Majed al-Nuzaili, a spokesperson for the Yemeni armed forces, described it as a training centre for security and police recruits.
Fahad al-Khalifi, Shabwa’s deputy governor, said hospitals in the province were overwhelmed and had been forced to transfer the most seriously wounded to neighbouring Hadramout and Aden.
“Some of them are in critical condition,” he told AFP.
Shabwa contains major oil and gas fields and is home to the Balhaf liquefied natural gas terminal, the country’s largest energy facility and a key economic asset.
A government military source in the province said the army feared the strikes could pave the way for a ground offensive “similar to what happened in Mokha”, the strategic Red Sea port city seized by the Houthis last month.
The source, who requested anonymity, said the Houthis had cut a road linking Shabwa with Houthi-controlled Al-Bayda province on Sunday.
The Houthis’ Saba news agency quoted a military source as saying the group had targeted “Saudi enemy gatherings” at al-Alam camp, causing dozens of deaths and injuries.
Earlier this month, Yemen’s government launched a counter-offensive to retake territory along the Red Sea coast seized by the Houthis in September.
Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia have also reached an unprecedented scale.
The group has carried out multiple strikes on Riyadh airport, including an attack this month that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, making it the deadliest attack in the kingdom in more than a decade.
In July, a fragile truce agreed in 2022 between the Houthis and Yemen’s government collapsed after the group allowed an Iranian plane to land in Sanaa in defiance of Riyadh’s control over Yemeni airspace, triggering a series of attacks.
The Houthis later declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began targeting its ships, territory and oil facilities before routing Yemeni government forces from positions along the Red Sea coast in a lightning campaign last month.