Agence France Presse ADEN: An explosion at a dairy factory in Yemen's Hudaida port killed at least 25 workers, medical sources said, with conflicting accounts attributing the blast to an airstrike by a Saudi-led alliance or to a rocket landing from a nearby army base.
The incident would appear to be one of the biggest cases of civilian deaths since a Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign against Houthi militia on March 26.
The 26September website of Yemen's factionalized army, which mostly sides with the Houthis, said 37 workers were killed and 80 wounded at the dairy and oils factory "during the aggressive airstrikes which targeted the two factories last night."
Medical sources in the city said 25 workers at the plant had been killed at the factory, which was located near an army camp loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Houthi ally.
Residents and witnesses contacted by Reuters said the airstrikes had targeted the factory shortly after midnight on Wednesday. Others said rockets fired from the base - possibly as retaliation against the bombings - hit the factory.
The operation by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim states aims to prevent the Houthis and former Saleh from winning control of the country. They instead want to reinstate Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi.
Airstrikes overnight hit Houthi positions along the Saudi border in Yemen's far North, an army bases in the central highlands, air defense infrastructure in the eastern Marib province, and a coast guard position near Hudaida.
After the week-long campaign targeting Houthis and forces loyal to Saleh, the coalition has failed to secure Hadi's control over his last remaining enclave in the southern port of Aden a key aim of the campaign.
The sound of gunfire and several large blasts were heard in Aden throughout the night, a Reuters reporter said. Videos posted online, whose authenticity Reuters could not immediately confirm, appeared to show fighting at an army base loyal to Saleh in the northeast of the city.
A raid at a coastal defense station at Maidi port in Hajja province north of Hudaida killed six soldiers, workers there said, while further strikes hit an army camp in Sanaa and a government facility in Saadeh in the north of Yemen.
In New York, UNICEF said late Tuesday that at least 62 children had been killed and 30 wounded in fighting over the past week, and the United Nations said an attack on a refugee camp in northern Yemen, which medics blamed on an airstrike, broke international law.
An Indian naval patrol boat picked up nearly 350 Indian nationals from the port of Aden Tuesday night, and was expected to arrive in Djibouti during the day, a spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs said.
More than 4,000 Indians - more than half of them nurses - are believed to have been in Yemen when Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes last week.
Negotiations are under way to allow evacuation flights into Sanaa, where the Indian community is concentrated, and receive permission to evacuate more from Hudaida, the spokesman said.
Saudi-led coalition pounds rebels in Yemen's Aden
ADEN: A Saudi-led coalition bombarded rebel positions early Wednesday in Yemen's main southern city Aden in a seventh night of raids that also targeted the capital and other areas.
In Aden, the strikes were focused on the rebel-held provincial administration complex in Dar Saad in the north of the city, according to a military official.
He said there were "many dead and wounded" among the Houthi Shiite rebels but was unable to give a precise toll.
The coalition has vowed to keep targeting the Houthis and allied army units loyal to former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh until they end their insurrection.
Iran is also accused of backing the rebels but Tehran denies providing military support.
The headquarters of a renegade army brigade loyal to Saleh was targeted overnight in the north of Aden, as well as the city's international airport, the military official said.
Militia fighters loyal to President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi have captured 26 Houthis during the fighting in Aden, one of their leaders said.
In the western port city of Hodeida, four civilians were killed and 10 injured when a dairy was hit in the night, said medical sources.
The circumstances of the bombing were unclear, with some witnesses saying the dairy was hit by a coalition airstrike and others blaming pro-Saleh forces.
Six other civilians were killed in an air raid targeting Maydi in the northwest province of Hajjah, according to medical sources.
Coalition planes also targeted camps of the Republican Guard, which is loyal to Saleh, around Sanaa and in the central region of Ibb overnight, according to residents.
Several Houthi positions were also targeted in the northern rebel strongholds of Hajjah and Saada.
After entering the capital in September, the Huthis and their allies gradually conquered areas in the center, west and south before bearing down on Aden last month, prompting Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia.
The U.N. said Tuesday that at least 93 civilians had been killed and 364 injured since the nearly week-old Saudi-led air campaign began.
Fierce clashes on Saudi-Yemeni border; FM pleads for troops
ADEN: Saudi troops clashed with Yemeni Houthis Tuesday in the heaviest exchange of cross-border fire since the start of a Saudi-led air offensive last week, while Yemen’s foreign minister called for a rapid Arab intervention on the ground.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of Arab states since last Thursday in an air campaign against the Houthis, who emerged as the most powerful force in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country when they seized Yemen’s capital last year.
The Saudis say their aim is to restore President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi, who left the country last week. The Houthis are allied with Saudi Arabia’s regional foe Iran, and backed by army units loyal to longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was pushed out three years ago after “Arab Spring” demonstrations.
Residents and tribal sources in north Yemen reported artillery and rocket exchanges along stretches of the Saudi border. Explosions and heavy gunfire were heard and Saudi helicopters flew overhead, they said.
In the southern port of Aden, Houthi fighters and allied army units pressed an offensive against forces loyal to Hadi, trying to capture the last remaining major stronghold of the absent president’s forces.
At least 36 people were killed when Houthi forces shelled Hadi loyalists in Aden. Jets from the Saudi-led coalition bombed Houthi positions near the airport.
Further west, Houthi fighters entered a coastal military base overlooking the Red Sea’s strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, local officials said, when soldiers of the 17th Armored Division opened the gates to the facility.
The Bab al-Mandeb shipping lane, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, is a vital energy gateway for more than 3 million barrels of oil passing daily to Europe, Asia and the United States.
Hadi’s rump government, now based in Saudi Arabia, called for Riyadh to escalate the air war into an invasion.
Asked by an interviewer on pan-Arab television channel Al-Arabiya Hadath whether he sought an Arab ground intervention, Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen responded: “Yes, we are asking for that, and as soon as possible, in order to save our infrastructure and save Yemenis under siege in many cities.”
Saudi authorities say they have gathered troops along the border in preparation for any possible ground offensive, but have given no timetable to send them in. Pakistan has also said it is sending troops to support Saudi Arabia. “There could be a limited ground operation, in specific areas, at specific times. But don’t expect there to be an automatic resort to a ground operation,” said Brig. Gen. Ahmad Asseri, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition.
“I don’t want us to concentrate on the land operation as if it is a ‘must’ ... if it is possible to achieve the goals through other means.”
The crisis in Yemen is the first big foreign policy test for Saudi Arabia’s new king, Salman, and the kin he has elevated to top posts.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian called the Saudi strikes a “strategic mistake.” He said Tehran had a proposal to end the conflict and was trying to reach out to Riyadh. He gave no details.
“Iran and Saudi Arabia can cooperate to solve the Yemeni crisis,” he said in Kuwait.
“We recommend all parties in Yemen return to calm and dialogue.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said the operation would continue until it restored security and unity to Yemen.
“We are not the ones calling for war. But if you bang the drums of war, we are ready for it,” he told the kingdom’s Shura Council advisory body.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said one of its planes had been prevented from delivering medical supplies in Sanaa, and called for “the urgent removal of obstacles to the delivery to Yemen of vital medical supplies needed to treat casualties.”
It also called on all combatants to allow humanitarian workers to operate safely. A Yemeni Red Crescent volunteer was shot dead Monday in Dhalea while evacuating wounded people.
Amnesty International said at least six civilians, including four children, had burned to death in strikes Tuesday morning in Ibb in central Yemen.
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Saudi Arabian-led coalition is turning a blind eye to civilian deaths and suffering caused by its military intervention,” Amnesty’s Said Boumedouha said.
“International humanitarian law requires all warring parties to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians amid the hostilities.”
At least 62 children have been killed and 30 injured in Yemen during fighting over the past week, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said Tuesday.
“Children are in desperate need of protection, and all parties to the conflict should do all in their power to keep children safe,” said UNICEF’s representative for Yemen, Julien Harneis.
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