Saudi military coalition attacks Yemen’s capital
US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has attacked Yemen’s capital Sanaa. The coalition said an offensive had been launched to destroy “military targets” of the Houthi rebels who control Sanaa.
There were more than twelve air strikes, six at a military academy and four at an air base at the airport. As reported by residents, loud explosions were heard in Sanaa, among other things, at an unknown destination near the Presidential Palace. There were no victims.
On Saturday, the rebels launched two ballistic missiles at targets in Saudi Arabia . They were aimed at the Saudi capital Riyadh and the border town of Jisan. Both missiles were intercepted, and two civilians were injured by fragments in Riyadh. As the Houthis said, the missiles were aimed at “sensitive targets” in Saudi Arabia. There will be “more painful attacks”.
Heavy fighting has recently taken place in northern Yemen between the Yemeni government forces and Houthi units supported by Saudi Arabia. Military personnel and tribal leaders in the provinces of Dschauf and Marib said that more than 45 fighters on both sides had been killed within two days.
Saudi Arabia has been fighting in Yemen for five years
The UN special representative for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, expressed concern about the attacks. Yemen’s leaders would have to spend “every minute of their time” to prevent the spread of the corona virus and mitigate its “potentially catastrophic consequences”. So far, no infections with Sars-CoV-2 have been officially reported in Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and only half of the country’s health centers are in operation.
A civil war has been raging in Yemen since 2014. The Houthi rebels supported by Iran had conquered large areas in the north around Sanaa . In March 2015, Saudi Arabia launched an offensive to stop the rebels’ advance on the port city of Aden in the south of the country.
The government of the de facto disempowered President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is based there. Hadi is in exile in Saudi Arabia. The rebels have expanded their arsenal since 2014, including using drones that, according to the UN, can fly up to 1,500 kilometers.
The Saudi military coalition includes states from the region, such as the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kuwait and Sudan. It is also supported by the USA, France and Great Britain with intelligence and logistics. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the war began.
Humanitarian situation in Yemen is catastrophic
Saudi intervention in Yemen has received international criticism from many sides. Among other things, it has led to a humanitarian emergency: millions of people in Yemen suffer from a lack of food and medicine supplies in Yemen due to a naval blockade by the military coalition.
According to UN information, most of the fatalities are civilians, according to the UN , one million children suffered from acute malnutrition in 2016. The situation has hardly changed since then. A total of 20 million people, more than two thirds of the Yemeni population, are at risk of starvation. In the wake of the conflict, the UN Security Council condemned active famine as a tactic of war.
In 2016, a cholera epidemic broke out in Yemen, which killed more than 3,000 people, and in 2019, thousands contracted dengue fever. Yemeni economic output has slumped by almost half since the Saudi intervention began, and three million people have fled. Among other things, due to Saudi Arabia’s leading participation in the war, the Federal Government recently extended the ban on arms exports to Saudi Arabia until the end of the year.
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The article is written and prepared by our foreign editors from different countries around the world – material edited and published by Ordo News staff in our US newsroom press.
