Saudi-backed Yemeni forces are reporting that as on Monday night, they’ve advanced to within 20 kilometers of the major port city of Hodeidah. This is setting up the stage for an imminent fight over the last Houthi-controlled port.

A mostly desert country reliant almost entirely on food imports, it is understandable why the battle for Hodeidah is being presented as “make or break” for the Houthis. This city is the last connection for the Houthis, and indeed for many millions living in Houthi territory, to the outside world, and effectively their lone source of food and medical aid.

That’s why human rights groups have condemned the offensive against Hodeidah in general as a huge problem, threatening the flow of aid to a region where many are already on the brink of starvation. The pro-Saudi forces, however, are desperate to break a protracted stalemate, see taking this city as ensuring a stranglehold on the north.

Yet in the end this is literally using access to food as a weapon of war, and the fall of the port could immediately put eight million Yemenis off the brink of starvation into outright famine. The loss of medical aid will also cost lives, though the Saudi naval blockade has meant access to medicine in north Yemen is so intermittent that many of the people dependent on regular medicine to survive have been killed off long ago.