Yemen’s PM ends exile, returns to Aden

Yemen’s Cabinet was back in the country after months spent in self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia and was working Wednesday out of the southern port city of Aden, a government spokesman said.

Pro-Hadi fighters, backed by Yemeni forces freshly trained and armed by Saudi Arabia, along with troops from the UAE, ejected the rebels from Aden in July and have since recaptured four other southern provinces.

President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled Aden for the Saudi capital Riyadh in March as Houthi forces closed in.

The coalition began air strikes against the Houthis and their allies – forces loyal to Saleh – in late March after they pushed from their northern stronghold towards the southern port of Aden.

He said security would be the government’s top priority.

The coalition is now pushing ahead with an offensive in Marib, about 120 km (75 miles) east of Sanaa, trying to drive the Houthis out of the province in preparation for a push against the capital.

According to the United Nations , more than 4,300 people have been killed in the Yemen conflict since March.

For their part, the Houthis said they would carry on fighting for as long as necessary.

A government building located in the Walaari area in the south of Sanaa was been targeted by the strike, as per the sources.

On Sunday, the government pulled out of UN-sponsored peace talks.

The exiled government of Yemen has made another gain for Sunni power against the Houthi rebels, and two governments may soon operate in Yemen.

“A collapse of the Shia militants’ authority is far from imminent – or guaranteed over the medium term”, said Jordan Perry of the UK-based risk assessment group Verisk Maplecroft.

Elsewhere, witnesses said masked arsonists on Wednesday torched St Joseph Roman Catholic church in the Aden’s central Crater neighbourhood, one of the city’s few remaining churches.

The country’s coasts are not adjacent to the Arabian Sea, while Yemen’s Hadhramaut, al-Shabvah and al-Mohrah coasts have access to it.