Coalition forces destroy two explosive-laden Houthi boats
The boats belonging to Houthis were threatening navigation. They were destroyed 6 kilometres south of Salif, says spokesman; Iran hits record one-day virus death toll of 221
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen destroyed two explosive-laden boats in the Red Sea on Thursday, its spokesman said.
The two remotely controlled boats belonged to Houthi forces and were threatening navigation, his statement carried on Saudi state news agency SPA said.
They were destroyed 6 kilometres south of the Yemeni port of Salif in the early hours of Thursday, he said.
The coalition has previously accused the Houthi movement of trying to atack vessels off the coast of Yemen with unmanned boats laden with explosives.
The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 ater the Houthis ousted the internationallyrecognised government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014.
In a separate development, it was reported that Yemen cemetery officials are struggling to dig enough graves as coronavirus is spreading fast in the country.
In Taiz, cemetery supervisor Dabwan Al
Makhlaafi had to hire mechanical diggers to keep up with demand for new graves at a cemetery originally built for fallen government fighters, as coronavirus spreads through the war-torn country. “Workers were not able to keep up with the digging, burial and finishing of the graves,” said Makhlaafi, a former member of parliament.
The burials at Taiz illustrate the heavy toll that the pandemic has wrought on Yemen, which lacks adequate testing capabilities and health infrastructure.
The government based in the south has reported 1,303 cases, including 348 deaths. The Houthi movement has not provided figures since May 16 when it said there were four cases and one death.
The United Nations has said the virus is circulating undetected and infections are likely much higher. A government health ministry spokesman said it reported figures daily and “nothing was hidden.”
In the plot overlooking the green hills of southwest Yemen, Shaman Radman Ali helps carry his father in a white plastic body bag.
He died at the city’s only coronavirus hospital with suspected COVID-19 infection, but no test was conducted to confirm it. The family went into debt to scrape together almost $600 for tests and drugs at the hospital, and another $50 for the grave.
Their story is a familiar one across Yemen, including in the southern port of Aden where many hospitals, unprepared to deal with coronavirus patients, turned away people at the beginning of the outbreak.
The family of 60-year-old Abdallah Al Sharaabi were fearful when his fever spiked but could not afford the $50 a day at a private hospital.
When his condition worsened, a nearby government hospital refused to admit him and told them to go the dedicated COVID-19 centre 20km outside Aden run by medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF).
“I had to carry him home alone because nobody would help me for fear of infection,” his wife Umm Muhammad said.
The family hesitated about taking him to the coronavirus hospital which had seen so many fatalities, and Sharaabi died in the two-room house he shares with his wife and nine children.
His 16-year-old son Mohammed quit school to take on his father’s job making deliveries on a small truck.
“Our situation is difficult. Some charitable societies are helping people in our neighbourhood but it is not enough. I need to work now,” he said.
Since Al Sharaabi died in May, two more coronavirus centres opened in Aden and the MSF hospital said its patient numbers are starting to fall.
Meanwhile, Iran reported a new single-day record death toll of 221 from the novel coronavirus on Thursday, ater weeks of rising numbers in the Middle East’s worst-hit country.
“Unfortunately in the past 24 hours we have lost 221 of our compatriots to the COVID-19 disease,” health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told a televised news conference. “The death toll has now reached 12,305.”
The Islamic republic has been struggling to combat the outbreak since announcing its first cases in February.