Saudi-led Coalition Bombs Yemen’s Hodeidah Port

Clashes also continued in Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, where anti-Houthi security officials said they took over a house belonging to Saleh and other government buildings.

O’Brien told the Security Council Saudi Arabia had not yet made good on an April pledge of $274 million for the world body’s aid appeal for Yemen, which he said needs at least $1.6 billion and is only 18% funded.

“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.

In Monday’s air raids, the attack on Jibla, a town in Ibb province, killed six civilians, local officials said.

Al Masirah, a TV station which is run by the Houthis, aired a video report with Houthi fighters who said they were less than two km from Najran, a city in a province of the same name near the Yemeni border.

The port, which lies virtually due west of the capital Sanaa, has develop into a focus of Yemen’s humanitarian disaster, which The global Committee of the Red Cross stated final week the nation was “crumbling” underneath.

Saudi-led air strikes against rebels in Yemen have left a “bloody train of civilian death”, according to a report from Amnesty worldwide.

As airstrikes intensify against the Houthis in the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah, Saudi-led forces are expected to conduct a landing operation soon, an anti-rebel source said.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast in Aden, the temporary seat of Yemen’s administration while the Houthi group holds the capital, Sanaa.

The battle for Taez is expected to be hard for the loyalists, analysts say, with recent victories by pro-government forces in Yemen’s south likely the result of rebels pulling their forces back to the city.

An Amnesty report said it had investigated eight coalition air strikes in Yemen that killed 141 civilians, including children.

The Saudi monarchy and the US are seeking to reinstate former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was forced to flee the country in the face of a Houthi assault on Aden.

Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern that both the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-allied forces were violating the laws of war and not doing enough to prevent or minimize civilian casualties.

“All the parties to this conflict have displayed a ruthless and wanton disregard for the safety of civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty worldwide.