5-day humanitarian cease-fire starts in Yemen

Aden was recently liberated from Houthi control by the Popular Resistance and last week members of Yemen’s government-in-exile began returning to the city in order to set up a rival power base to the Houthis’ in the capital Sana’a, which the group has controlled since September 2014.

The cease-fire was called in response to a request from exiled Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, the coalition said in a statement.

Some witnesses said the district had been targeted by mistake, but others alleged that the Huthis had taken up positions in the area.

Houthi forces held up 16 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from the World Food Programme through Yemen’s Al Hudaydah province to support displaced persons in the major city of Taiz.

The front lines of Yemen’s war shifted in favor of the Saudi-led coalition earlier this month when, in coordination with forces loyal to Mr. Hadi, they managed to drive the Houthis out of the southern port city of Aden and much of the surrounding areas.

The group could therefore not give a “negative or positive” answer about the truce, he said.

Coalition air strikes killed 17 rebels in Lahj on Sunday and 14 in Abyan province, loyalist military sources said.

There is growing concern that the deadly strike which the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes are increasingly killing civilians as they continue to target Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

Houthi fighters and army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh captured Aden at the outset of the war, prompting Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia, an ally along with the United States.

A week-long UN-brokered truce failed to take effect earlier this month after Saudi Arabia said it had not been asked by Mr Hadi, in whose name it is acting, to stop its raids.

Boucenine said the hospital in Mokha had closed weeks prior due to a lack of medical supplies and staff. Some of the injured died en route to the hospital in the city of Hodeida, 112 miles north.

It said the coalition will cease military operations, but that it will respond should Houthi rebels or their allies conduct any military actions or movements.

Other ships from the UN and Gulf countries followed.

At least 1,670 civilians are among the more than 3,000 people killed in the conflict since the end of March, according to the United Nations.

“The suffering of the civilian population has reached unprecedented levels”.

A boat chartered by the Red Cross and loaded with humanitarian supplies successfully docked at Aden on Thursday.