Mukalla: Residents of the southern Yemeni city of Taiz staged a demonstration near a Houthi-led checkpoint on Saturday to denounce the militia’s ongoing siege of the city. Yemenis also organized an online campaign to mark the 3,000 days since the Houthi siege began in the spring of 2015.

Dozens of Yemenis queued near the Houthi-controlled eastern entrance to Taiz to protest a blockade that has lasted more than eight years and urged the world to intervene.

People carried banners criticizing the international community, led by the United Nations, for allowing the Houthis to continue the blockade. They also showed images of people traveling on steep, treacherous roads to avoid the city’s choking checkpoints.

One of the posters read: “The siege of Taiz is the crime of the century.”

He read another post in English titled “Save Humanity in Taiz”.

The Houthis imposed a siege on the third largest city in Yemen in mid-2015, after months of fierce fighting broke out with Yemeni army forces and allied resistance fighters who succeeded in defending the city with the help of the Arab coalition.

To force the city to surrender, the Houthis surrounded the main entrances to the city, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the city, and stopping the delivery of goods and humanitarian aid.

On social media, Yemeni leaders, politicians, activists, and many residents of Taiz took part in a campaign to commemorate the 3,000 days of siege and raise awareness of the plight of those trapped inside.

Ishraq al-Maqtari, a Taiz-based human rights activist, said the Houthi blockade had a significant impact on the city’s residents, with many killed in car accidents while trying to leave or reach the city on perilous roads.

She criticized the international community for not making enough efforts to end the blockade.

“During the 3,000 days of the siege, the people of Taiz endured various forms of agony. They traversed it on foot through treacherous mountain roads, carrying only essential supplies – medicine, food and oxygen for the sick on their backs. The world is silently following our plight,” she wrote on Twitter.

Speaking to Arab News from the city, Aqil al-Sami, who was also involved in the campaign, likened the Houthi checkpoints outside the city to the Berlin Wall, saying that the Houthi-controlled Al-Hawban Road “separates families and deprives children of their fathers and children of mothers and hospital patients.”

Yemeni leaders have vowed to end the blockade through diplomacy or force. The head of the Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, praised the efforts of the Yemenis to end the blockade.

“We affirm our firm commitment to make ending the fascist militia’s siege of the city a top priority,” Al-Alimi said.

Under a UN-brokered truce that took effect in April last year, the Houthis were supposed to lift the blockade in return for the Yemeni government facilitating the resumption of commercial flights from Sanaa airport, along with the entry of fuel ships into Hodeidah port.

However, so far, the Houthis have opened only a small unpaved road that heads to and from Taiz.

A member of the Presidency Council, Tariq Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, said that the siege of Taiz will not be lifted until the Houthis are defeated by military force.

Saleh said, “The siege of Taiz will be broken by the guns of men, and the era of Houthi tyranny will end and disappear, along the lines of bloodthirsty militias and terrorist gangs.”