Yemeni Information Minister Hassan al-Lawzi says the army is close to quashing the movement by Houthi fighters north of the country.

Yemeni Information Minister Hassan al-Lawzi says the army is close to ending Houthis movement in the north.

“The armed forces are taking calculated moves, and a final end to these confrontations will come soon,” the state-run Saba news agency quoted Lawzi as saying on Tuesday.

His remarks come 10 weeks after the Operation Scorched Earth started on August 11 to crush Shia forces in Saada province and its surrounding areas, triggering fierce clashes which have left hundreds of people killed and wounded.

Yemen’s state media are reporting tight siege of anti-government groups, adding the armed forces have cut off their lines of supply.

Earlier, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said the government was ready to hold conditional talks with Shia fighters in the north, but reiterated Sana’a’s refusal to negotiate with those who hold ‘separatist’ demands.

Houthis took arms against the Sana’a rule, accusing the dominantly Sunni government of neglect and discrimination against Yemen’s Shia minority, which accounts for almost 30 percent of the country’s population.

Al-Mazraq refugee camp, near the northwestern Yemeni province of Saada, is the only UN relief center for the displaced Yemenis.

Some 150,000 people have been displaced or affected by the conflict since 2004, more than one-third of whom have fled since the army’s latest offensive against the Shia fighters in the northern Saada province.

According to UN officials, tens of thousands of the displaced are still living in Saada, mostly in abandoned buildings, in the mountains and on roadsides in the war zone.

Lack of food, water and other basic necessities are plaguing those in Mazraq camp in Hajjah, the only UN camp for the displaced Yemenis, as widespread malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition have become major concerns.

The Sana’a government has also been facing massive protests in the south, where people are calling for a return to their formerly independent South Yemen prior to the unification of the north and the south in 1990.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, is also believed to host al-Qaeda militants around its borders while the waters off the Gulf of Aden nation remain a hotbed of relentless piracy.