Inside the ‘kill box’: The Yemenis who stayed behind in Houthi-held Mocha

Nabil watched from his balcony as a column of displaced people passed by at dawn on September 10, hours before Houthi forces entered Mocha, a Yemeni city on the Red Sea. “People were terrified. There was fear everywhere,” he said. Nabil, a daily wage labourer in his 40s, did not join them. He still lives in Yakhtul, a village north of Mocha, alongside relatives, none of whom has left their homes. “Displacement is humiliation and homelessness,” he said. “I haven’t done anything wrong, so I have nothing to be afraid of, and I don’t belong to any side.” Weeks after the Houthis took Mocha from forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government, thousands of civilians remain in the district.