Sana’a: Air strikes and clashes killed at least 176 fighters and civilians in Yemen on Monday, residents and media run by the Al Houthi movement said, the highest daily toll since the war began more than three months ago.
The United Nations has been pushing for a halt to air raids and intensified fighting that began on March 26. Almost 3,000 people have been killed since then.
On Tuesday, UN envoy to Yemen Esmail Ould Shaikh Ahmad continued meetings with Al Houthi officials in Sana’a to try to broker a ceasefire to allow aid deliveries. One Al Houthi official said Monday’s attacks had dealt a blow to peace efforts.
“No truce, no retreat, no surrender. Forward, forward heroes of Yemen, for victory is coming,” Yahya Ali Al Qahoom wrote on his Twitter account.
The Iran-allied Al Houthis claim they are rebelling against a corrupt government, while local fighters say they are defending their homes from Al Houthi incursions. Saudi Arabia says it is bombing the Al Houthis to protect the Yemeni state.
On Monday, about 63 people were killed in air strikes on Amran province in the north, among them 30 people at a market, Al Houthi-controlled state media agency Saba said.
A witness said that an air strike was directed at a vehicle of the Al Houthi militiamen, passing through the region.
In the same province, about 20 fighters and civilians were killed at an Al Houthi checkpoint outside the main city, also named Amran, about 50km northwest of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, local residents said.
Alliance war planes also killed about 60 people at a livestock market in the town of Al Foyoush in the south.
Also in the south, residents reported a further 30 killed in a raid they said apparently targeted an Al Houthi checkpoint on the main road between Aden and Lahj. They said ten of the dead were Al Houthi militiamen.
Tribal sources in the central desert province of Marib said about 20 Al Houthi militiamen and soldiers fighting alongside them were killed in air raids and gun battles with tribal fighters, who support Yemen’s president in exile Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
On Monday, coalition air strikes had targeted the main headquarters of the General People’s Congress party, an ally of the Al Houthis, in Sana’a, along with the houses of several leaders of the party and the rebel movement.
Neither side has offered concessions as civil war rages.
The UN says more than 80 per cent of Yemen’s 25 million people need some form of humanitarian aid.
