Despite the announcement of a new cease-fire, warplanes and helicopters from a Saudi-led worldwide air coalition early Sunday attacked several positions in Yemen held by the Shia Houthi militia, eyewitnesses have told Anadolu Agency.
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The Arab coalition fighting the Houthis had announced a five-day truce from 11:59pm (2059 GMT) on Sunday to allow in emergency aid amid severe shortages of fuel, food and medicine.
But a Houthi spokesman said the rebels would not adopt a position on the move until they were officially informed.
The unexpected ceasefire was announced after Yemen’s exiled President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, wrote to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman asking for a break, to allow humanitarian supplies to be delivered.
Security officials and residents of Sabr said the situation on the ground has quieted after the cease-fire took effect.
The source close to the Yemeni government would not comment on the airstrikes but reiterated that coalition has maintained that it had the right to respond to any military action by the Houthis.
Troops trained and armed by the coalition appeared to have triggered the shift in the balance in the Hadi loyalists’ favour.
The Saba news agency controlled by the Huthis said in a text message to subscribers that Huthi forces, and allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, had attacked places it named as al-Khawjarah and al-Maa’zab in the Red Sea province of Jizan with rockets and shells.
A six-day UN-proposed truce due to begin just before midnight on July 10 also failed as clashes and coalition air strikes persisted.
The coalition said at the time it did not receive a request to halt operations from Hadi.
Relief supplies, however, have recently begun to trickle into Aden after loyalist fighters secured the southern port city, which had been Hadi’s last refuge before he fled to Saudi Arabia in March. The Sunni-dominated Saudis have led a coalition in strikes against Houthi rebels and other groups.
Houthi forces also held up 16 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from World Food Programme through Yemen’s Al Hudaydah province to support displaced persons in the major city of Taiz.
The past four months of fighting have devastated Aden and destroyed the lives of the majority of its people, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for the country, Johannes Van Der Klaauw, said in a statement Monday, a day after visiting the city.
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The statement concluded with the Secretary-General’s call on the conflict parties to comply fully with their obligations under worldwide humanitarian law to protect civilians and to urgently work with the United Nations and humanitarian aid organizations to bring assistance to millions in need throughout the country.
