Aid groups alarmed by casualties in Yemen
Print Edition
Saudi-led airstrikes pounded Yemen’s Shiite rebels for the sixth day yesterday, destroying missiles and weapons depots controlled by the rebels as international aid organizations expressed alarm over the high civilian casualties from the strikes and the violence roiling the country.
The airstrikes’ campaign by Sunni Arab states, which began last Thursday, is meant to halt the advance by the Shiite rebels known as Houthis who have overrun the country with the help of the deposed president’s loyalists and forced Yemen’s current president to flee abroad.
The UN human rights office in Geneva said that in the past five days, at least 93 civilians have been killed and 364 wounded in five Yemeni cities engulfed in the violence, including the capital, Sanaa. The overall figures are likely much higher and it was not immediately clear if the casualties cited by Geneva referred to just airstrikes or the strikes and fighting between Yemen’s warring factions.
Overnight and into early hours yesterday, the coalition bombed the Iran-backed rebels around Sanaa, according to Yemeni military and security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Along with warplanes, warships and naval artillery were used to deter the Houthis and their allies loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh from advancing into the southern port city of Aden. It was not immediately clear which coalition countries the ships in the waters off Aden belong to.
Over the past days, the airstrikes have targeted at least nine of Yemen’s 21 provinces and have prevented the Houthis from reaching Aden, the former capital of the once-independent south, where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi declared a temporary capital after fleeing rebel-controlled Sanaa.
Meanwhile, Iran said it sent an aid shipment to Yemen, according to the official IRNA news agency. The aid contained 19 tons of medicines and medical equipment and two tons of food provided by the Iranian Red Crescent, IRNA said.
Tuesday’s statement from Geneva said UN human rights staffers in Yemen verified that at least 19 civilians died when airstrikes hit a refugee camp near the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen, with at least 35 wounded, including 11 children.
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