Fighting rages in Yemen near strategic Red Sea strait

The Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels mistakenly struck a wedding party on Monday, killing at least 38 people, Yemeni security officials said.

There was no confirmation of the loss by the Houthis of the waterway, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the rest of the Indian Ocean.

Bahrain also recalled its ambassador from Iran on Thursday.

In western Yemen, residents said coalition air strikes had destroyed a bridge on the main road linking Sanaa and Hodeidah, effectively cutting the capital off from Yemen’s main Red Sea port.

On Saturday, Yemen’s Prime Minister Khaled Bahah visited an area near Bab al-Mandab after pro-government fighters pushed rebel forces out of the immediate area.

The strait, through which the US Energy Information Administration says 3.8 million barrels of oil and petroleum products passed to the United States, European Union and Asia in 2013, had been in the hands of Houthis and their allies, units still loyal to ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, since March.

The battered city of Taiz, which lies in a province of the same name largely controlled by the Houthis, has always been the site of civilian casualties as Saudi airstrikes as well as rebel mortar shells often hit homes. They have been in control of the capital Sanaa since last September and are at war with the internationally recognized government as well as southern separatists, local militias and Sunni extremists.

The Houthi advances forced Hadi to flee and prompted military intervention by Yemen’s northern neighbour Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Muslim states.

“These are conservative figures”, he told AFP news agency.

That is four times the 156 cases verified in 2014, he said.

Yemen has been the target of Saudi military strikes since March 26.

A European-backed resolution calling for a United Nations investigation into rights abuses committed during the conflict was withdrawn this week due to pressure from Saudi Arabia.

OIC Secretary General Iyad Ameen Madani also delivered a speech to the meeting, voicing support for the so-called “coalition forces in their efforts to maintain the unity of Yemen’s people and territory”.

Saudi Arabia, which was totally opposed to such a probe, introduced its own watered-down proposal on Yemen, which instead supported a domestic probe.