Category: Yemen

ADEN, Yemen — The crows and their haunting screams are pervasive. They scavenge through mountains of rubbish lining the streets and tear at rotting bodies lying in the no man’s land separating the two warring sides in a conflict that has decimated this once bustling seaport. Yemen’s southern port city of Aden was, until recently, a popular if slightly dilapidated holiday retreat for throngs of Yemenis. Amid rising tension on March 19, Houthi militiamen, along with renegade military units loyal to the country’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, launched an assault in the city that quickly escalated into civil war. The widespread destruction caused by months of relentless fighting has torn the heart out of Aden, including the historic old town known as Crater that nestles in the dramatic backdrop of a dormant volcano. The most densely populated area of Aden is now ghostly quiet, save for the crows […]

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SANA, Yemen — A branch of the Islamic State in Yemen claimed responsibility for a series of car bombings here in the capital that killed at least 30 people on Wednesday, adding a new layer of peril to a city terrorized for months by airstrikes as well as by antiaircraft fire that has fallen on civilian homes. The bombings, outside mosques where many Shiite Muslims worship and a headquarters of the Houthi rebels, were the deadliest attacks claimed by the Sunni extremist group since March, when suicide bombers killed more than 130 people at two Shiite mosques here. The March attacks helped accelerate the country’s slide toward civil war, sharpening sectarian tensions and aggravating the confrontation between the Shiite Houthi rebels, who are from the country’s north, and supporters of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was ousted by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia entered the war days later, beginning […]

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United Nations-sponsored consultations on the Yemen crisis have started in Geneva, with the aim of ending the bloody conflict in the country. Representatives from Yemen’s exiled government, the Houthi rebels, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s General Peoples’ Congress and other opposition groups were expected to attend the talks in Switzerland, which began on Monday morning. It was not immediately clear, however, if all of the parties were in attendance when the talks started. Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, was in attendance at the opening session of the talks, posing for photographs with a number of representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Yemen faces humanitarian emergency Announcing the start of "preliminary inclusive consultations" in the Swiss city, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN’s peace envoy for Yemen, issued a statement before the talks calling on "Yemen’s political actors to participate in these consultations in good faith and without preconditions, and in […]

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SANAA Saudi-led air strikes killed at least 44 people during an air raid on the main headquarters of the Yemeni army in central Sanaa on Sunday, the Houthi-run state news agency Saba said. The agency said that more than 100 people, including civilians, were also wounded in the attack which also destroyed private houses in Tahrir district in central Sanaa. Residents had earlier said that four explosions shook the compound, where soldiers allied with the Iranian-backed Houthi group that dominates Yemen had gathered since Saturday evening to get their pay checks. "More than 44 citizens were martyred and 100 others including women and children, according to preliminary figures," the agency said. The agency quoted a source at the Health Ministry as saying that rescue teams where working to find people believed to be still under the rubble of houses destroyed by the raids. The escalation of the violence came […]

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Photo Yemenis were taken to a hospital after they were wounded during shelling Wednesday in Taez. Credit Abdel Rahman Abdallah/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images SANA, Yemen — Airstrikes by a Saudi-led military coalition were said to have killed at least 80 people in Yemen on Wednesday, and the World Health Organization warned that roughly one-third of the country’s population was in urgent need of medical care. The airstrikes hit a military base in a densely populated neighborhood here in the capital and areas near the Saudi border. Health officials said those killed included dozens of civilians, as well as fighters loyal to the Houthi rebel movement. The death toll, which could not be independently confirmed, appeared to be one of the highest in a single day since Saudi Arabia launched its air war against the Houthis in late March, with the stated goal of returning Yemen’s exiled government to […]

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AP Photo/Shohdi Alsofi Latest News Buy AP Photo Reprints SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A United Nations-sponsored peace conference that was to take place at the end of the month has been indefinitely postponed, senior Yemeni politicians said. The latest setback came as jets from the Saudi-led coalition on Monday pounded Shiite rebel positions in the capital and across the country. The talks were to take place in Geneva on May 28 and aimed at a political settlement to end the armed conflict between Shiite rebels known as Houthis and the internationally recognized government now exiled in Saudi Arabia. Three officials from the Houthi, socialist and unionist parties said late Sunday they were notified the talks had been postponed and that no new date had been set. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists Houthis backed the talks and said […]

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* Several ships waiting clearance to deliver goods * Aid groups say hunger growing LONDON, May 22 (Reuters) – A trickle of aid, medicine and commercial food cargoes is reaching Yemen yet the process remains slow as more ships await clearance to discharge at ports and logistical chains buckle due to fuel shortages and war. Before Saudi Arabia launched air strikes in Yemen in March, the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country imported more than 90 percent of its food – most of it by sea. It faces increasing problems as many shipping companies have pulled out and those still willing to bring cargoes endure a long wait for clearance from Saudi-led warships trying to prevent arms supplies reaching Iran-allied Houthi fighters. In recent days over 130,000 tonnes of wheat has reached Yemen in commercial ships as well as other supplies including sugar and fuel, partly helped by a five-day truce […]

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Photo People fleeing in Sana on Sunday after airstrikes hit the home of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s former president. Credit Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters SANA, Yemen — Houthi rebels here said on Sunday that they had agreed to a five-day cease-fire proposed by Saudi Arabia that would allow humanitarian relief supplies to be delivered to the country, according to statements carried by a Houthi news agency. Yet as the Houthis accepted the limited truce, the Saudi-led military coalition bombed the residential compound of Ali Abdullah Saleh , Yemen ’s former president and the Houthis’ most important ally in the war. The residence, in Sana, the Yemeni capital, was struck at least seven times early Sunday, witnesses said. Mr. Saleh, who survived, made a defiant statement on television afterward, standing amid the rubble of his compound. The cease-fire would begin at 11 p.m. Tuesday. Since proposing a halt in the hostilities last […]

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