// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route
Ali Mohammed Khumaisi has not seen his family in eight years
Ali Mohammed Khumaisi appears lost in thought, struggling to believe he has now spent eight years living in a makeshift shelter made of reeds, unable to reach his family just 12 miles (20km) away.
He left the family home to visit his father in a nearby village one day when a surprise offensive drove the Houthis out of the area surrounding his family home – and Ali found himself trapped on the wrong side of the front line.
He now lives in a makeshift shelter at al-Mahrabah displacement camp, in north-western Yemen, only a few kilometres from government-held areas near the Saudi border.
“I call my children. They cry, and I cry. We cannot reach each other. Neither they nor I can get through because of this war," he told BBC News Arabic last week.
"Every day, the situation gets worse. War could return to this area at any moment. Artillery fire from the north is already close to us.
"I am afraid that one day my children and I will be separated forever and that I will never be able to reach them."
The UN classifies Yemen among the world's largest displacement crises, with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reporting that 46,000 have been displaced in the last week alone.
If the smoke plume visible today on Saudi Arabia’s oil pipeline which connects the Gulf to the Red Sea is confirmed to be from a Houthi attack, it would be the latest incident where the Iran-backed armed group has targeted Saudi oil infrastructure.
On 27 July, the Houthis claimed to have struck oil refineries in both the east and west of Saudi Arabia.