UN’s Yemen envoy in Sanaa

ADEN: Fresh clashes and air strikes have killed 32 rebels around Yemen’s Red Sea city of Hodeida, hospital sources said yesterday, as the United Nations envoy kept up peace efforts in Sanaa.

A military source said the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Shia Huthi rebels carried out an air raid on a radio station tower in Hodeida.

Three people died in yesterday’s raid, he said, while Huthirun Al-Masirah television said four people were killed, three security guards and a station employee.

According to medical sources in Hodeida, 32 insurgents were killed and 14 others wounded in clashes and air strikes since Saturday.

The coalition in July announced a ceasefire to give a chance to UN-brokered peace talks. The UN’s Yemen envoy, Martin Griffiths, arrived yesterday in the capital Sanaa.

Griffiths is pushing for new peace talks after a failed attempt to bring the two sides together in Geneva earlier this month.

The rebels kept away from the talks, accusing the UN of failing to guarantee the return of their delegation from Switzerland to Sanaa and to secure the evacuation of wounded rebels to Oman.