Coalition says to keep port open, air strikes kill at least 9 Yemenis
ADEN: The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Wednesday it would keep Yemen’s Ansar Allahcontrolled Hodeidah port open for a month, despite a fresh missile attack at Riyadh, but it kept up air strikes that killed at least nine people.
The Western-backed coalition, which controls Yemen’s airspace and port access, said last month it would allow humanitarian aid through Hodeidah following a nearly threeweek blockade imposed because of a missile attack towards the Saudi capital’s international airport.
The Saudis say the Red Sea port, which is Yemen’s main entry point for food and humanitarian supplies, is also a hub used by the Ansar Allah rebels to bring in weapons.
On Wednesday, the coalition confirmed it would keep access open to the port despite a further ballistic missile attack at Riyadh on Tuesday by the Ansar Allah which Saudi forces also intercepted.
“Keen to maintain humanitarian aid to the brotherly Yemeni people and as a result of intensified inspection measures, the coalition command announces that Hodeidah port will remain open for humanitarian and relief supplies,” the coalition said in a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA on Wednesday.
The coalition said ships bringing in fuel and food would also be allowed to enter for another 30 days while proposals made by the United Nations envoy to Yemen were implemented, it added.
The agency did not elaborate on the proposals.
But the demanding coalition that a UN has been inspection regime agreed in 2015 be further tightened to prevent weapons from reaching the Ansar Allah.
Yemen’s almost three-year-old war pits the Ansar Allah, who control the capital Sanaa, against the Saudiled military alliance, which backs the government now based in the southern port of Aden.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional rivals.
Tuesday’s missile attack came as the Ansar Allah marked 1,000 days since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the Yemen war in March 2015 to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after a militia advance on his base in Aden forced him to flee.
Coalition forces, which are supported by the United States and Britain, meanwhile launched fresh air strikes overnight.
Residents said at least nine members of the same family, including at least five children, were killed in one air strike which hit their home in Wadi Khair in southern Yemen’s Shabwa province.