The American Center for Justice (ACJ) condemns the artillery attacks and sniper fire carried out by the Houthi militia on the evening of Sunday, 18 October 2026, targeting several residential neighbourhoods and populated villages in Taiz Governorate. The attacks resulted in the death of a woman and injuries to four other civilians, including two children, with most of the injuries concentrated in the head.
According to field information documented by the Center’s monitors in Taiz city and its surrounding rural areas, the Houthi militia targeted the neighbourhoods of Aqaqah and 30th Street, west of the city, as well as the Al-Shaqb area south of Jabal Sabir, using mortar shells and sniper fire. The attacks resulted in the death of Fatimah Ahmed Abdulqader, who succumbed to injuries caused by mortar shell fragments.
The attacks also left four civilians with injuries of varying severity, some of them critical. The victims are identified as follows:
Hadeel Haitham Najeeb Abdullah (11): The girl sustained shrapnel injuries to the head while in the Al-Shaqb area. She was taken to the emergency department of Al-Thawra General Hospital at 8:22 p.m.
Ra’fat Ali Saeed (7): The boy sustained shrapnel injuries to his hand as a result of the shelling of 30th Street.
Naji Abdulqawi Qaid Abdullah Al-Kabsh (49): He sustained a severe head injury while in the Aqaqah neighbourhood at 7:20 p.m.
Abdullah Muqbil Ali (55): He sustained a gunshot wound to the head in the Aqaqah neighbourhood.
In a related development concerning the consequences of the siege and attacks on vital supply routes, the Center received field reports indicating that the Hayjat Al-Abd road had been subjected to an act of sabotage. This coincided with two freight trucks overturning on the rugged mountainous Karbah–Al-Sahih road, which drivers have been forced to use because the Houthi militia continues to close the main roads leading to Taiz city.
The American Center for Justice (ACJ) stresses that shelling populated residential neighbourhoods with mortars whose effects are indiscriminate, and targeting civilians in their own communities, constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits indiscriminate attacks and criminalises attacks against civilian populations. Such acts may amount to war crimes and warrant criminal accountability; they are not subject to a statute of limitations.
The Center calls on the international community and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen to break their silence in the face of the Houthi militia’s continued escalation against civilians in Taiz Governorate. It urges them to exert effective pressure to halt ground attacks, lift the suffocating siege imposed on the city, and take concrete action to refer the cases of those implicated in these crimes to international justice mechanisms.
Issued by the American Center for Justice (ACJ)
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