Two Pilots Killed in Saudi Apache Helicopter Crash on Yemeni Border

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition. The governor and other officials who were present at the time were not hurt in the apparent assassination attempt.

The humanitarian situation has steadily deteriorated since the fighting picked up in March, when Saudi Arabia launched a U.S.-backed coalition air campaign against Houthi forces and their allies, which control large swaths of the country, including the capital.

“The firepower with which this war is fought on the ground and in the air is causing more suffering than in other societies which are stronger and where infrastructures are better off and people are wealthier and have reserves and can escape”, Mr Maurer said at the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva.

In addition, Lake condemned an air strike on a teachers’ office in Amran, Yemen Tuesday night which killed 13 educators who gathered to prepare exams for thousands of children who had missed the end of their school year because of the brutal conflict across the country.

Five pro-government fighters were killed in the rebel attack on the Labouza military base, said Qayed Nasser, a spokesman for the anti-rebel forces in Lahj province.

More than 65 civilians were killed Friday by Saudi-led airstrikes in the Yemen city of Taiz, according to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, which said survivors of the strikes were searching through the rubble with their bare hands in hope of finding other survivors. The U.N.’s World Food Programme said the conflict has left Yemen on the brink of a starvation in the areas where there is fighting. The key port of Aden has been liberated, as the Houthis progress to the capital Sanaa. The Reuters news agency quoted officials in Taizz as saying that Houthi fighters had shelled some areas of the city that had fallen to Hadi loyalists.

“This conflict is a particular tragedy for Yemeni children”, Julien Harneis, UNICEF Representative in Yemen, said.

“Airports and seaports need to remain open and be used for both commercial imports and humanitarian supplies, without restrictions”, O’Brien said.

The southern port city of Aden was retaken from the Houthis last month with the help of heavy Arab air strikes and weapons deliveries. They said Al-Qaida’s gains came in recent weeks in the wake of fighting in Aden between Shiite rebels and pro-government forces, after the front moved outside the city.

The shelling provoked airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, which has been targeting the Houthis since March, when Yemen’s crisis escalated amid the rebel advance and land grab.

The organisation has urged the UN Human Rights Council to establish an global commission of inquiry to independently and impartially investigate alleged war crimes committed during the conflict.