She said shelling and clashes were ongoing, with residents saying fighting around a presidential palace in Taez had killed three civilians.
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Two senior Saudi military pilots were killed Friday following fall of their Apache helicopter in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the Yemeni border, official media reported.
Yemen’s Saba news agency, run by the Houthi movement, said Houthi forces had shot down a Saudi Apache helicopter in Jizan.
The conflict pits the Ansarullah and military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and Popular Committees against forces supporting Hadi, southern separatists, Salafi tribes, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Saudi-led coalition.
Meanwhile, up to 65 people have been killed in an air-strike by the Saudi-led coalition, according to Medicins Sans Frontieres. “Those who survived the bombings are searching through the rubble with their bare hands in the hope of finding survivors, as well as the bodies of victims of the attack,” it added.
And only on Wednesday, 13 educators and four of their children were in a teacher’s office in Aran, north of Sana’a, the nominal capital, said Anthony Lake, the executive director of UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, in an email. Docs With out Borders stated exclusively seven of the 20 hospitals in Taiz have been capable of obtain the injured. The coalition bombed not only military installations but built-up areas of the city, destroying hundreds of buildings and five markets and at least one school.
Forces loyal to Hadi claim to have driven the Houthis out of much of the country’s south; the rebels say they staged a strategic retreat.
In Hadramawt, Yemen’s largest province, where al-Qaida has been consolidating its control, suspected al-Qaida militants attacked a police checkpoint, killing a soldier and wounding others, security and tribal officials said.
The civil war has killed more than 4,300 people since late March, as aid groups have been calling for both sides to reach a ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief for civilians. The conflict gained global attention when the Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, last September, and escalated in March as a Saudi-led coalition started launching airstrikes against Houthi positions.
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Gulf countries are seeking to fend off what they see as Iranian influence on their neighbor, while the Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt government in league with the al Qaeda militants.
