Demonstrators take to the streets in capital Sana’a in protest against Houthi movement that took power last week

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The US, Britain and France have closed their embassies in Yemen over security concerns in the Arab world’s poorest country, where Shia rebels finalised their power-grab last week.

Rebels seized more than 30 US embassy vehicles in the capital, Sana’a, after the ambassador and diplomats left the country.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the central city of Taiz on Wednesday and hundreds more Sana’a in the largest protests yet against the Houthi movement, which overran Sana’a in September and formally took power last week.

The US stopped work at its embassy and withdrew its diplomatic staff on Tuesday.

“Recent unilateral actions disrupted the political transition process in Yemen, creating the risk that renewed violence would threaten Yemenis and the diplomatic community in Sanaa,” US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

France and Britain followed suit on Wednesday, while employees of the German embassy said its mission was also getting rid of sensitive documents and would soon close.

The Houthi movement has called its moves a “revolution” and says it advanced from its traditional redoubts in northern Yemen to rid the country of corruption and economic peril.

Its leader, Abdel Malik al-Houthi, has criticised what he calls western meddling in Yemen.

But Houthi struck a conciliatory tone in a televised speech on Tuesday as dialogue continued among Yemeni parties who mostly oppose the Houthi decision to dissolve parliament.

“It is in the interest of every power, domestic and foreign, to stabilise this country,” he said.

Opponents of the Iranian-backed group, including Yemen’s rich Sunni Gulf neighbours, have decried the takeover as a coup.

Houthi fighters, bedecked in tribal robes and carrying automatic rifles, were manning checkpoints and guarding government buildings they control in the capital on Wednesday.

In Taiz, which the Houthis do not control, crowds carrying banners chanted slogans against the group and called for their downfall.

Fanning out into Yemen’s west and centre in recent months, Houthi forces advanced far south through several districts on Tuesday night, according to local officials.

Leaders and Sunni tribesmen in the southern and eastern regions, which the group has yet to seize, are arming themselves against the Houthi advance and are in some cases making common cause with Yemeni al-Qaida militants, leading to fears of an all-out sectarian war.















