SHABWA, Yemen — October 20, 2026 — At least 73 young recruits were killed and more than 200 wounded when Houthi ballistic missiles struck the al-Alam military training camp in Yemen’s southern Shabwa province on Monday, officials said Tuesday, making it the deadliest single attack since the country’s civil war reignited three months ago.
Struck While Lining Up for Drill
The missiles slammed into the camp while the recruits were standing in formation for a morning training session, showering the sandy parade ground with shrapnel, military and government officials said. All of the dead were aged between 18 and 20, said Shabwa Governor Awad Ibn al-Wazir, who told The Associated Press that the toll was still rising as rescue teams searched for at least a dozen recruits still missing a day later. Footage from the scene, circulated online and analysed by news agencies, showed rows of motionless bodies scattered across the camp’s dusty ground.
Three officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media, said several of the wounded had been transferred to hospitals in neighbouring Hadramout and Aden in life-threatening condition. At least 15 of the young men killed belonged to a single Yemeni tribe, one official said.
Trainees, Not Fighters
The victims had signed up to join Yemen’s internal security forces and were being prepared to protect the security of their own province — not to fight on the frontlines, officials stressed. “This had nothing to do with frontlines,” the governor said. “They had not attacked anyone or advanced against anything. It was only to protect the security of their province.”
Majed al-Nuzaili, a spokesperson for Yemen’s armed forces, described al-Alam as a training centre for security and police recruits. The Shabwa provincial government condemned what it called a “bloody, treacherous attack,” warning the preliminary toll could rise further as hospitals in Ataq, the provincial capital, were overwhelmed and issued urgent appeals for blood donations.
Government Vows Response
Rashad al-Alimi, the president of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, said the strike showed the rebels’ pattern of “resorting to cowardly terrorist attacks whenever they face pressures.” Al-Alimi vowed an immediate response and said he had spoken with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to press for the Houthis to be designated a foreign terrorist organisation. The government said an inquiry would examine why so many recruits had been left exposed.
Bloodiest Chapter Yet of a Reignited War
Monday’s strike was part of a surge of fighting that began in July, when forces of Yemen’s government and the Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on the Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport, shattering a 2022 ceasefire deal that had largely stopped the country’s civil war. Since then the Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia with growing intensity — including Tuesday’s ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh, which the Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed.
Shabwa sits alongside Marib and Hadramout in what analysts call the Yemeni government’s “triangle of power,” the strategic zone holding most of the country’s oil and gas production. The civil war, which began when the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014, has killed more than 150,000 people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, aid agencies say.
