Bomb hits governor’s office in Yemen’s Aden

Yemen’s exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has approved a plan to establish three military formations, made up mainly of tribal fighters and former military personnel, to fight the Houthi insurgency in the Tihamah region, a military official has said.

“It was an attack by a rocket-propelled grenade”, said governor Nayef al-Bakri, who was unharmed by the assault on his temporary headquarters.

The dead bodies of 50 Huthi rebels and allied troops were retrieved from the city on Monday, the sources in Taez said, adding that 31 pro-government fighters were also killed.

No group claimed responsibility for the killings but Daesh-affiliated militants have carried out such slayings in the past.

There was no immediate comment from officials from the Saudi-led coalition.

Plagued by chronic instability even before the latest civil war, Yemen is also home to the world’s deadliest branch of al Qaeda and a new offshoot of Islamic State, which surfaced with a series of suicide bombings on Shia mosques on March 20 which killed 137 people.

Dozens of Yemenis were killed and injured Thursday in Taiz city by Houthi shelling against residential neighborhoods. The Houthis, however, still hold the capital Sanaa.

“If we cannot support the commercial markets by ensuring that the ports are open… if we do not see increased donor supply, we are facing the ideal storm in Yemen”, he said.

The EU condemned the attacks.

Overall, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday, at least 1,950 civilians have been killed in the fighting as of Friday.

The southern port city of Aden was retaken from the Houthis last month with the help of coalition air strikes and weapons deliveries. Diplomats and air groups have appealed for a ceasefire.

“No nation, no society, can afford to lose its children to conflict – whether from direct attacks, from malnutrition, from disease, from lack of education, or from the traumas of the horrors they witness”, U.N. agency UNICEF said in a statement. “Scores of children are dying every month, while those who survive live in constant fear of being killed”, reports UNICEF.

The rebels, who have controlled the capital Sana’a since September, have in recent weeks suffered a series of defeats at the hands of their Saudi-backed rivals in southern and central Yemen. Tehran and the Houthis deny this.

Forces loyal to Hadi claim to have driven the Houthis out of much of the country’s south; the rebels say they staged a strategic retreat.

But as a political accord remains elusive, suffering and hunger continue to spread.

Some 13 million people in the impoverished Arab state, half the population, are hungry, while 6 million face starvation and urgently need food aid, the World Food Program said.