The following CCTV footage was captured in a hospital in Yemen at the beginning of this month. It shows Houthi fighters walking into the hospital to confront an enemy soldier. As they attempt to apprehend and disarm the enemy soldier, a violent firefight erupts. In desperation, the outnumbered soldier throws a fragmentation grenade down the hall which fails to detonate. After seemingly being hit by one of the various rounds flying around, he is finished off with a burst of fire from a Kalashnikov assault rifle fired by one of the Houthi fighters.
One of the most shocking aspects of this violent video is the presence of multiple young children who arrive after the outbreak of violence and catch the aftermath. In Yemen, a country that has been at war for half a decade, such incidents are commonplace. Hospitals in the country, overrun by combat wounds and famine victims, are not spared from the violence that has overrun the country since 2015.
The Violent Firefight Was Part of the War in Yemen
The combat footage of the violent shootout in the hospital is a result of the Yemeni Civil War which erupted back in 2015. It’s a conflict that is largely fought between two factions: the Yemeni government led by the Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi armed movement, alongside their supporters and allies. Both sides claim to constitute the official Yemeni government.
“My view is that we shouldn’t be supplying the Saudis with arms while they’re bombing civilians in Yemen and, by the way, while they’re arming al-Qaida and it’s fighting our own counterterrorism operations in Yemen.”
– Ro Khanna
The war has significantly destabilized Yemen and introduced various terror groups to the region in the form of Al-Qaeda and ISIS who have carried out a series of attacks since the war began. Al-Qaeda in particular controls significant territory across Yemen especially along with the coastal areas.
Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the conflict and actively opposes the Houthi movement. They have controversially launched devastating air strikes upon Yemen throughout the conflict. The Saudi campaign is backed by the United States who has been providing the Saudi military with intelligence and logistical support. The United States and the United Kingdom have also both been active in supplying Saudi Arabia with the weapons used in the devastating airstrikes. Various analysts view the war in Yemen as an extension of the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It’s accepted that the war is largely a means for Saudi Arabia to combat Iranian influence in the region.
The Saudi Arabian bombing campaign on Yemen has resulted in widespread civilian casualties and has subsequently been slammed by various governments around the world. The Yemen Data Project estimates that, as of March 2019, almost 18,000 civilians had been killed or injured in Saudi Arabian airstrikes. Overall, the war in Yemen is believed to have killed over 100,000 people. Alarmingly, Yemen is also currently in the grip of starvation that threatens to become the worst global famine seen in the last 100 years and poses a threat to 13 million civilians.
The Reaper Feed combat footage sector functions as a library and resource base for combat footage captured in various conflict zones around the world. It is in no way intended to glorify violence, war, or any of the armed groups depicted in the videos. It is strictly educational.
