Houthis: 15 killed in coalition air raids on Yemen's Hodeidah
Yemen's Houthi rebels say at least 15 people have been killed in air
raids by a Saudi-UAE coalition targeting a strategic highway linking the
port city of Hodeida with the capital, Sanaa.
Fighting near Hodeidah - the main gateway for imports of relief supplies
and commercial goods into the war-ravaged country - has escalated since
June after the Saudi-UAE military alliance battling the Houthis
launched a wide-ranging operation to retake the strategic seaport.
The Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah news outlet said on Friday the attack
on Thursday struck the Kilo 16 highway, the main supply route heading
east out of Hodeidah.
More than 20 people were reported wounded.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the figures.
The reported assault came just days after the Yemeni army, backed by coalition air support, made inroads into the Kilo 16 area.
Amanda Brydon, humanitarian policy adviser at Save the Children, said the highway 16 is critical for humanitarian aid.
"What we are seeing with the fighting is the critical junction at Kilo
16 is the artery towards Sanaa and other parts of the country."
"The port [of Hodeidah] is a lifeline for the rest of the country. Over
80 percent of the country's commercial imports come through this port,"
she told Al Jazeera.
WATCH: Yemen's Geneva talks fall apart after Houthi no-show
The offensive is being carried out by a disparate collective of forces,
including the National Resistance, a group of fighters loyal to Yemen's
former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Tihama Resistance, a group of
fighters loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and the
Giant Brigades, a military unit backed by the United Arab Emirates
(UAE).
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi see Hodeidah port as the main entry point of
weapons for the Houthis and have accused their regional rival Iran of
sending missiles to the rebels, a charge Tehran has denied.
'Struggling to survive'
On Thursday, the United Nations said ongoing violence could trigger
famine in the impoverished nation where an estimated 8.4 million people
are facing starvation.
"The situation has dramatically deteriorated in the past few days ...
people are struggling to survive", Lise Grande, the UN's humanitarian
coordinator for Yemen, said in a statement.
"We're particularly worried about the Red Sea mill, which currently has
45,000 metric tonnes of food inside, enough to feed 3.5 million people
for a month. If the mills are damaged or disrupted, the human cost will
be incalculable," Grande added
The war in Yemen, the region's poorest country, has unleashed the
world's most urgent humanitarian crisis. It started in 2014 when the
Houthis overran much of the country, including Sanaa.
The conflict escalated in 2015 with the intervention of the Saudi-led
coalition which launched a massive air campaign aimed at rolling back
Houthi gains and supporting the pro-government forces loyal to President
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed since the
coalition intervened in Yemen.The death toll has not been updated in
years and is likely to be far higher.
Muscat talks
In a separate development, talks on Thursday held in Oman's capital,
Muscat ,between the UN's envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and delegation
of Houthis ended wiwthout a breakthrough, according to the rebels.
"There has not been progress regarding the discussions while we have not
received the guarantees," Hamid Assem, a member of the Houthi
delegation, told AFP news agency.
In the talks, Mohammed Abdulsalam, who headed the Houthi delegation
alongside fellow rebel official Abdelmalak al-Ajri, discussed the
reasons for their absence from peace talks planned to be held in Geneva
last week.
Those talks, which would have been the first in nearly two years, were
scheduled to start on September 6 but the Yemeni government's delegation
left after the Houthis failed to show up.
The rebels accused the UN of failing to provide guarantees for the safe
return of their delegation from Switzerland to Sanaa and to secure the
evacuation of wounded rebels to Oman.
Thursday's talks in Muscat also covered "necessary measures" needed for
fresh talks set for "as soon as possible", the rebel-affiliated Saba
news agency said.
Griffiths is also scheduled to visit Sanaa and Saudi Arabia.
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