She made the assertions amid reports that the cease-fire had been breached only hours after coming into force, with a Saudi-led coalition carrying out airstrikes in capital Sanaa and fierce clashes between the warring factions in Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city.
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The temporary truce was aimed at facilitating aid deliveries to more than 21 million people in Yemen who have been suffered severe shortage of food, water and medicine supplies after more than three months of airstrikes and civil war.
The Arab coalition said on Saturday that the Yemeni government in exile had not asked it to observe the truce.
The fresh airstrikes against Houthi fighters in the capital Sanaa killed at least 12 people on Sunday while several people were receiving treatment in hospitals, Xinhua cited the medical sources as saying.
Saudi Arabia says its air campaign, which began in late March, comes in response to appeals by embattled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi – who is currently in Riyadh – for military intervention against the Houthis.
The southern fighters managed to push back the rebels in the coastal Ras Amran area, west of Aden, reported by General Fadhel Hasan, a spokesman of the Popular Resistance.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, relies on imports for the bulk of its food and fuel, but the coalition has imposed a near-complete air and sea blockade during the fighting.
Over 3,000 people, including 1,500 civilians, have been killed since conflict started in Yemen in March 19, according to the UN.
“There have been very heavy air strikes and fighting across the country, seemingly unabated”, UNICEF’s Yemen representative Julien Harneis said.
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AQAP’s new leader Qassim al-Raymi, appointed after his predecessor was killed in a US drone strike last month, called for attacks on the United States in a taped speech released on Thursday.
