Repeated Houthi missile and drone attacks have halted commercial and maritime activity at Yemen's Mocha Port near the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, killing seven people and causing about 16 million U.S. dollars worth of direct losses, government and port officials said on Saturday.
The port, in southwestern Yemen's Taiz province, is a key entry point for commercial goods and supplies bound for government-held areas.
Abdulmalik al-Sharabi, director of the government-held port, said the attacks over the past week killed four members of the port's security forces and three port employees, while causing extensive damage to facilities and equipment.
"Some of the port's berths were damaged, along with warehouses and the port's own maintenance workshops. Every economic facility in the port complex was targeted in the attack," al-Sharabi said.
He said six wooden vessels and a dredger involved in the port's expansion operation were also damaged. The suspension of shipping and commercial activity has left about 1,300 workers without an income.
"The attack on Mocha Port caused enormous losses for merchants. There were also casualties among port personnel and workers, including dockworkers, and commercial vessels moored at the port with cargo being loaded also sustained damage," said Mohammed al-Ghanami, head of the Mocha Merchants' Union.
Yemen's pro-government National Resistance Forces said the Houthis launched 40 ballistic missiles and 46 drones, and used explosive-laden boats in the attacks against Mocha, its port and other sites in the area between Aug 9 and Aug 14.
The Houthis have said their operations in the Mocha area targeted military buildups and weapons depots of what they called Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces. Government authorities refuted that account, describing the port as a civilian commercial facility.
The escalation has raised concern that Yemen could slide back into full-scale fighting. A U.N.-brokered truce expired in October 2022, but a fragile de facto ceasefire had largely held until the recent attacks.
Houthi strikes halt operation of Yemen's Mocha Port, kill seven
Around 300 representatives and guests from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies and eight international organizations joined the 16th APEC Energy Ministerial Meeting in Beijing on Thursday and Friday.
They had discussions on three priority directions: high-quality inclusive energy service, mutual empowerment of artificial intelligence and energy, and energy governance synergy in the Asia-Pacific region.
"We chose high-quality inclusive energy service, artificial intelligence and energy, and energy security synergy as three directions for discussions, aiming to address the common concerns of various sides. Inclusive energy service focuses on inclusive development so as to help various economies benefit more from energy-transition outcomes. The integration of digital and intelligent technologies represents the future direction in driving energy transformation through technological innovation. Energy security synergy helps solidify the guarantee for basic needs and ensure the stability of energy supply chains in the region," said Xiong Minfeng, deputy head of the Department of International Cooperation under the National Energy Administration.
The meeting integrated the idea of "high-quality development" into the APEC regional energy cooperation framework, and defined high-quality energy services as "safe and reliable, sufficient and resilient, universally accessible, sustainable and affordable", guiding the focus of regional cooperation to shift from basic energy coverage to the improvement of service quality.
"To model the market in a way that can better work for renewables instead of fossil fuel, so at least definitely not having subsidies to the fossil fuel activities, and pave the ground for all forms of electricity or power. We have to ensure that these tumultuous increase of the use of renewables should also be accompanied by the recycling of the workers that are coming from the fossil fuel system to the new one based on renewables," said Francesco La Camera, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
"So I think this will be important to realize how we can ensure that energy system could be more affordable, reliable for everyone, that for us to ensure energy security, the choice is renewables. And for making renewables work, we need grids and pipelines that are inter-connected, flexible, and make the electrons and molecules moving from one country to another to ensure energy security and the wellbeing of everyone," he added.
APEC Energy Ministerial Meeting eyes inclusive service, AI empowerment, governance synergy
