On Friday night, Yemeni security officials and residents said a vehicle carrying four members of the Qaida-allied group Ansar al Sharia was hit in a suspected USA drone strike in Mukalla, capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt.
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Officials contacted by the Associated Press said the airstrikes in Taizz came amid reports of ground fighting between pro-Houthi forces and rivals loyal to exiled President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia in March. Hours after the truce went into affect Friday, Saturday morning local time in Yemen, fighting was still taking place as Saudi coalition fighter jets continued their airstrikes, while rebel forces carried on their defenses.
Smoke rises after a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen, Friday, …
Meanwhile, before the ceasefire began, Houthi chief Abdulmalik Al Houthi said, “We do not have much hope for the truce to succeed”.
Yemen’s exiled government had wanted the rebels to withdraw from the cities and towns they had overrun since September as a precondition to a truce, but it came under pressure to agree to a halt in violence immediately.
Ma’rib is the country’s main oil and gas hub, and provides Yemen-the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula-with the bulk of its electricity and a sizable portion of its income.
The pause in the fighting will last about a week until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and aims to allow the delivery of assistance to some of the 21 million Yemenis in need.
“We must distinguish between the so-called humanitarian truce which has been insisted upon by the United Nations for a while and what we insist upon and hope for: that there will be a full truce with a comprehensive ceasefire including the withdrawal of forces”, Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yasseen told state-owned Saudi Ekhbariya TV on Thursday.
“Today [Thursday] there was shelling with Katyusha rockets on the cities of Aden and Taiz by the Houthi militia and the followers of the ousted former president Saleh”, he said, adding that “the Popular Resistance is set to defend its lands”.
Fighting and bombings have resulted in over 3,000 deaths in Yemen since the conflict began in March.
Etefa said the WFP delivered 9,000 tonnes of food to its warehouses in Yemen during the past week, adding the truce was needed to secure its mission.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says in a recent assessment it has put the number of food-insecure people in Yemen at close to 13 million.
UNICEF said it was stepping up nutrition screening, vaccinations and other life-saving interventions for millions of children, with teams having to “brave extremely hazardous conditions”.
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Humanitarian partners have reached 4.4 million people with aid in the past three months, but this is a fraction of those in need, says the United Nations Spokesperson.
