Rights groups urge Yemen’s Houthis to end Taiz blockade

CAIRO (AP) — Sixteen rights groups have urged Yemen’s Houthi rebels to end their years-long siege of the country’s third-largest city. In a joint statement Monday, the groups said the Houthi blockade of Taiz has resulted in severe restrictions on freedom of movement and impeded the flow of essential goods, medicine, and humanitarian aid to the city’s residents. The Houthis have imposed a siege on the government-held Taiz, the capital of the province by the same name, since March 2016. The blockade is part of Yemen’s brutal civil war since 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen.