Hodeida, Yemen — Firefighting teams on Monday were struggling to contain a massive blaze at Yemen’s Hodeida port, days after a deadly Israeli strike damaged oil storage facilities and endangered aid ships in the harbor, which is in the massive portion of the country controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebel movement.
Heavy flames and black smoke spiraled into the sky for a third consecutive day following the strike on Saturday, said an AFP correspondent in Hodeida.
Firefighting teams appeared to be making little progress, with the blaze seemingly expanding in some parts of the port, the correspondent said, adding that there were fears the blaze could reach food storage facilities.
The fuel depot is run by the Yemen Petroleum Company, which said late Sunday that the six people killed in the Israel strike were its employees.
The Houthis have said that more than 80 others were wounded in the attack, many of them with severe burns.
The Houthis are part of an informal network of Iran-backed groups, often referred to as proxies, across the region. The Houthis have pledged a “huge” response to the strikes and threatened to attack Tel Aviv again.