The Yemeni civil war began in 2014 when Houthi forces, allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, took the capital Sanaa and pushed the internationally recognised government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi into exile. In March 2015 a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened on Hadi's behalf. The war stretched across mountains, ports, and desert, and Port Midi sat at a seam: close enough to the Saudi border that weapons arriving there could reach the kingdom; close enough to Houthi territory that it mattered to hold.

Hadi loyalist forces took the larger town of Haradh on 19 December 2015 after fighting that left dozens dead on both sides. They pushed the Houthis back through the surrounding area over the following days under Saudi air cover. On 7 January 2016 they captured Port Midi itself after heavy fighting. But the Houthis and Saleh loyalists held a long stretch of the coastline nearby, and the fight did not end - it simply changed shape, into the slower, bloodier grind of small engagements, counter-attacks, and airstrikes that would go on for more than a year.

In late March 2016 a Saudi coalition airstrike in the Midi area killed more than 78 civilians, including 22 children. Humanitarian organisations raised the toll over the following days - first to 107, then to 129 dead and more than 100 wounded. On 21 September 2016, coalition missiles struck a residential area in Hodeidah where rebel leaders were said to be staying; at least 26 civilians were killed and 60 wounded. On 10 March 2017 an airstrike on a market in the small port of Khokha killed 20 civilians along with six Houthi fighters. These were not unique events in Yemen's war; they were representative of it. Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, and CNN reported each one; each time, the coalition either denied civilian deaths or declined to comment.

The military picture across 2016 looked like a slow erosion. In February, popular committees aligned with the Houthis destroyed two coalition armoured vehicles near Midi and shot down a Saudi surveillance plane. Saudi jets hit eleven targets in Midi district on 6 March. Mid-November saw a Houthi offensive on three fronts to retake Midi and Haradh; fifteen loyalists and 23 Houthi fighters died in those clashes. On 5 December Houthi forces pulled back from the contested town. In January 2017 Hadi loyalists pushed the Houthis more than 40 kilometres inland and took the interior of Harad district - the furthest the coalition advance would go. On 30 January the Yemeni army's Fifth Brigade reported 37 Houthis and six of their own soldiers killed or wounded around Harad and Midi.

The Red Sea coastline north of Hodeidah is one of the oldest trading fronts in the world - fishermen's dhows still sail it between Arabian and African ports as they have for centuries. The Battle of Port Midi overlays that long history with something newer and harsher: targeting drones, precision-guided munitions, markets turned into mass graves. On 1 July 2017 Yemeni army sources reported repelling a Houthi attack at Midi, killing 14 fighters including a spokesman. The Hadi coalition held the town. The war would continue - through the Battle of Hodeidah in 2018, through the siege of Saada, through the bombing of the Sanaa funeral hall - for years more. For the fishermen and families of Midi, the harbour remained exactly what it had always been: a way to make a living, when the airstrikes paused.