Stifling fuel crisis rages in Houthi-controlled areas

The areas under the control of the Houthis in Yemen are experiencing a stifling crisis in oil derivatives, while the terrorist militia continues to seize fuel trucks with the aim of deepening suffering and reviving its black markets.

The Houthi militia deliberately manufactures fuel crises while trying to attach this problem to the Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy and the Yemeni government. However, the current crisis has put the militia in a narrow corner and exposed all its false justifications for investing fuel crises humanitarianly and commercially by selling fuel on the black market.

The value of a 20-liter gallon of gasoline on the black market in Sanaa and Houthi-controlled areas exceeded about 40,000 riyals ($70), while the militia set the official price at the oil company’s stations under their control at 10,000 riyals, but without providing the required quantities.

Terrorist gang

Minister of Information Moammar al-Eryani of the legitimate Yemeni government considered that what the Houthi militia is doing by seizing fuel trucks is an affirmation that it is a terrorist gang that puts civilians and their conditions hostage in order to achieve financial and political gains and even trade their suffering in international forums.

Eryani pointed out that the Houthis’ continuation of stopping oil supplies coming by land from the liberated areas, seizing hundreds of trucks and preventing them from crossing confirms the militia’s intentional fabrication of a crisis of oil derivatives in order to run the black market and double its prices.

According to the minister, it is a deliberate crisis and is one of the Houthi policies of systematic impoverishment and starvation, exploitation of people's needs, and manipulation of their livelihoods, without any regard for their difficult living conditions.

Eryani called on the international community, the United Nations, and UN and American envoys to Yemen to condemn these terrorist practices that exacerbate the humanitarian situation in the areas under the control of the Houthi militia. He also called for putting real pressure on Houthi leaders to lift the ban on oil supplies and not to put obstacles in the way of their circulation and access to civilians at normal prices.

Houthi theft

Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi admitted on his Twitter account that fuel tanks were prevented from entering through land ports due to the requirements set by the militia-controlled oil company, by means of the company purchasing all quantities and remarketing them.

Reports revealed the presence of large quantities of oil derivatives in the Al-Sabaha storage facility in Sanaa and the Hodeidah facility, which led to the suspension of about two thousand fuel stations from work and the layoff of thousands of workers.

The Houthi oil company is trying to cover up the militia’s intention to stop the flow of oil derivatives through the land ports from the areas controlled by the legitimate government by repeating its leaders’ statements not to prevent the entrance of any tankers to Sanaa that conform to the specifications, which are justifications for the continuing escalation of the crisis. However, tanker drivers accused these statements of being lies, confirming in videos posted on social media platforms that the militia fired live bullets at them when they moved towards the ports in the Houthi-controlled areas, including the Ruweik and Al-Labanat port in Al-Jawf in eastern Yemen.