Direct proof of use
Hwasong-6 use in the 2014 Yemen Civil War is best documented through the Scud-C/Hwasong-6-type missile category used by Houthi-Saleh forces. The 2018 UN Panel of Experts on Yemen reported that Yemen's pre-conflict Missile Defense Command had procured 90 Hwasong-6 missiles during the first decade of the 2000s and that the 5th and 6th missile brigades aligned with Houthi-Saleh forces early in 2015.
The same UN report says the first confirmed Scud-C-type short-range ballistic missile launch against Saudi Arabia occurred on June 29, 2015, and that the last probable Scud-C-type attack was on July 26, 2017. The Panel defined the Scud-C-type category as either a Scud-B upgraded to Scud-C level or a Hwasong-6 supplied by North Korea, and separately found that the July 26, 2017 Taif attack was highly probably a modified Scud-C/Hwasong-6-type missile.
Sources: Final report of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, The Missile War in Yemen
Timeline
The launch record starts with inherited missile stocks rather than a new Houthi production line. CSIS reports that coalition airstrikes targeted ballistic-missile depots and launchers at the beginning of the Saudi-led intervention, but the campaign did not eliminate the missile threat: a Scud shot toward Khamis Mushait followed on June 6, 2015, and the UN Panel later treated June 29, 2015 as the first confirmed Scud-C-type launch.
By 2016 and 2017, UN investigators documented Scud-C/Hwasong-6-type missiles being pushed beyond normal range through minor weight-saving modifications. The Panel listed confirmed Houthi-Saleh Scud-C launches beyond 600 km on October 9, 2016, October 27, 2016, May 19, 2017, and July 26, 2017, and assessed the July 2017 Taif missile as highly probably a modified Scud-C/Hwasong-6-type SRBM.
Sources: Final report of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, The Missile War in Yemen
Narrative
In Yemen-war service, the Hwasong-6 sat in the Houthi-aligned long-range strike layer. It was not a front-line battlefield rocket; the documented use pattern was cross-border ballistic-missile fire from Yemen toward Saudi military bases, border areas, and target areas deeper inside Saudi Arabia. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance describes Houthi access to Scud-B, Scud-C, Hwasong variants, Tochka, Qaher-1, Zelzal-3, and C-802 missiles after the movement and Saleh-aligned forces gained access to Yemeni missile stores.
The evidence also separates Hwasong-6/Scud-C use from later extended-range missiles. The UN Panel found that some 2016-2017 Scud-C/Hwasong-6-type missiles were locally modified for slightly greater range, but that the Borkan-2H was a different, more advanced system and not simply a Scud-C/Hwasong-6 converted into a 1,000 km-class missile. CSIS makes the same distinction between Yemen's pre-war Scud-C stock, Burkan-1 as a later Scud-family variant, and Burkan-2H as a Qiam-derived system.
Oryx's Houthi missile inventory gives the stock-level endpoint: Hwasong-5/6 missiles were inherited from pre-war Yemeni Army stocks, most were converted into Burkan missiles, and the stock was later depleted. That supports the Hwasong-6 entry as a documented inherited missile stock and Scud-C-type launch system in Houthi-aligned service, while individual post-2016 missiles should be identified as Burkan or Qiam-derived systems when sources make that narrower identification.
Sources: Houthis, Final report of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, The Missile War in Yemen, Houthi Drone And Missile Handbook
