Yemen’s government is digging tunnels around its own capital as the Houthis take the hills above Aden

The front line in Yemen’s war is now close enough to Aden that the government is preparing to defend the city itself.

Houthi forces have advanced through al-Madaribah wal Ara, a district of Lahj province that runs up to the border of Aden governorate, and have taken hilltops overlooking the interim capital, a government military officer said on Friday. Three military officials, speaking without being named, said they had received orders to build fortifications to the west and north of Aden, including sandbagged positions and tunnels.

“We received high-level directives to establish military fortifications west and north of Aden Governorate,” one official said. Another described the work as a precaution that should have started earlier. The government has made no public statement about the defences.

The officer also said the Houthis were pushing east from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait towards the Gulf of Aden coast, and had taken al-Maqatirah, a mountain area on the main road to Taiz, a city they have kept under siege for weeks. Neither side’s territorial claims can be independently confirmed.

How fast has this moved?

On 2 November, four military sources said the Houthis had come within about 80km of Aden after taking al-Maqatirah and pushing government troops back towards Tur al-Bahah, threatening the road that links Aden with Taiz. A week later the government announced it had recaptured positions in Lahj and claimed heavy Houthi losses. By Friday, officials were describing Houthi fighters on the high ground above Aden.

Aden has been hit repeatedly since fighting resumed, including strikes on the presidential palace complex and a military base at the airport. This week the Houthis shelled al-Buraiqa, a densely populated western district, and said they had targeted a Saudi-led coalition command centre there. Yemen’s Information Minister, Salem al-Awalqi, condemned what he called repeated shelling of the city aimed at civilians.

Why did the war restart?

Yemen had been in a fragile truce since 2022. It collapsed in July, during the US-Israel war on Iran, after the Houthis let an Iranian aircraft land in Sanaa despite Saudi Arabia’s control of Yemeni airspace. The Houthis then declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and attacked Saudi airports, ships and oil infrastructure. In September, government forces lost control of the Red Sea coastline, including areas near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping chokepoints.

The fighting has crossed the border in both directions. This week the Houthis said they fired three cruise missiles at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh; the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted three cruise missiles aimed at the capital. Saudi Arabia said Houthi drones were launched towards Mecca, which the Houthis called lies, saying instead that a drone hit a pumping station at Yanbu on the Red Sea. The Houthis, through their al-Masirah media, have also reported Saudi airstrikes in Taiz province and artillery fire near the northern border. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has rejected European accusations that it backs the Houthis, calling them baseless.

What is the human cost?

By 8 November the WHO had counted 11,755 casualties since the fighting resumed: 2,098 people killed and 9,657 wounded. More than 2,000 of those casualties were recorded in just nine days, with Marib and Lahj among the worst-hit areas. Strikes have hit health facilities and ambulances, and fuel shortages are disrupting emergency care in Taiz.

More than 320,000 people have been displaced since 1 August, almost 16,000 of them in a single week. Yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the Arab world before this round of fighting began.

Why should anyone outside Yemen care?

Aden matters for the same reason the Strait of Hormuz does. Ships heading between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal must pass the Bab el-Mandeb, and a Houthi presence along the Gulf of Aden coast would put more of that route within range. With Hormuz already dangerous for shipping, a second chokepoint under threat would add to the freight and fuel costs that reach Australian households through petrol prices and imported goods.

The fall of Aden would also leave Yemen’s recognised government with no secure seat in its own country, a decade after a Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 to restore it, six months after the Houthis seized Sanaa.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.