Saudi-led air raids kill at least 20 in Yemen

Two Indians were killed in a missile attack from war-torn Yemen just inside Saudi Arabian territory on Saturday evening, unwitting victims of a military battle between Riyadh and Houthi rebels who control key parts of Yemen.

“They also stressed the urgent need for commercially-shipped food, medicine, fuel and other vital supplies to continue to enter Yemen through all of Yemen’s ports without delay as a humanitarian imperative because of the heavy dependence of Yemen and its people on imported food and fuel”, the statement said.

United Nations special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced in Bern on Sunday that a new round of talks would be held on 14 January.

Official media said Saudi Arabia intercepted a rocket fired towards the border city of Jazan late on Monday and then destroyed the missile launcher in Yemen.

“How many civilians will die in unlawful airstrikes in Yemen before the coalition and its U.S. ally investigate what went wrong and who is responsible”, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting rebels Houthis since March 26.

The head of the Yemeni government negotiating team, Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi, said the much-violated ceasefire will be extended for seven days after it officially expires on Monday.

The conflict has already claimed about 6,000 lives and forced 2.5 million out of their homes.

Quoting a Yemeni army spokesman, Yemen’s Houthi-run Saba news agency said the missile was directed at the Saudi Aramco oil company’s compound in Jizan and had “hit its target accurately”. In mid-April, less than three weeks after the Saudi-led coalition launched its military campaign, the UNSC passed a resolution largely drafted by the Gulf countries that imposed a strict arms embargo on the Houthi leadership and their allies.

The United Nations, initiating the peace process has declared that peace negotiation will take place in Switzerland with the aim to end the hostilities that have ravaged the impoverished nations.

Speaking in a press conference at the Tasnim headquarters in Tehran on Wednesday, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said the Al Saud not only failed to reach its objectives in the war on Yemen, but also realized its weakness and vulnerability in the encounter with Yemenis.

“Washington has led intense contact with countries of the Arab coalition, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to support a permanent ceasefire in Yemen”, another diplomat said.