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Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen were bombed by the Saudi-led military coalition on Saturday night, March 26, following the unilateral announcement of a three-day truce by Yemeni rebels.
The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen bombed areas controlled by the Houthi rebels on Saturday night, March 26, after they unilaterally announced a three-day truce, the Saudi capital, Riyadh, reported.
The war that has ravaged Yemen, a poor country on the Arabian peninsula, for more than seven years, pits pro-government forces, backed by the Saudi coalition, against the Houthis, rebels supported by Riyadh’s great rival, Tehran.
Around midnight on Saturday, the coalition announced that it had “begun carrying out airstrikes against Houthi rebel military camps and strategic areas in Sanaa,” the capital, which has been in rebel hands since 2014, the television network reported. Saudi state Al-Ekhbariya. There was no immediate comment on possible victims in the raids.
The coalition has stepped up incursions into areas held by Houthi rebels, including Sana’a and the southern region of Hodeidah, in response to a new round of rebel attacks on Saudi Arabia last Friday.
380,000 dead and millions displaced
One such attack on Saudi territory sparked a major fire at an oil site in Jeddah, to the west, near the Formula 1 circuit that hosts the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with no reported casualties.
But the next day, the rebels announced that they would stop their offensives in their country and in Saudi Arabia for “three days”.
The truce could become “permanent” if Saudi Arabia lifts the “blockade” on Yemen, ends its air raids and withdraws its “foreign forces” on Yemeni soil, said Mahdi al-Mashat, a senior Houthi official. The Saudis did not react to this announcement.
On Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres “strongly condemned the recent escalation of the conflict in Yemen.”
Quoted in a statement from his spokesman, he denounced both “the airstrikes carried out on Friday by the Houthis” and “the subsequent coalition airstrikes in Sana’a.” According to the United Nations, these raids “killed eight civilians, including five children and two women.”
With nearly 380,000 dead and millions displaced, according to the UN, the war has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian tragedies in Yemen, where much of the population faces acute hunger, sometimes close to starvation.
with AFP
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