Saudi Airstrikes Martyr 15 on Hodeidah-Sana’a highway

At least 15 people been martyred in fresh air raids conducted by Saudi warplanes on a strategic road linking the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah to the capital, Sana’a.

The al-Masirah television network reported that more than 20 people had also been injured in the aerial assaults on the Kilo 16 highway.

Over the past few days, fighting has intensified between Ansarullah revolutionaries and the Saudi-backed militants loyal to former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi around the critical highway, through which humanitarian aid is delivered to the Yemeni people.

Amanda Brydon, humanitarian policy adviser at Save the Children NGO, expressed concerns about fresh tensions in Yemen.

“What we are seeing with the fighting is [that] the critical junction at Kilo 16 is the artery towards Sana’a and other parts of the country,” she told Al-Jazeera.

Hodeidah, she said, is a lifeline for the rest of the country, where over 80 percent of the country’s commercial imports come through.

Mohammed al-Boukhaiti, a Hodeidah-based member of the Ansarullah political council, said Yemeni fighters were still in control of the highway.

“The Yemeni army confronted the attack of the coalition and today Kilo 16 is under the control of the army, but it is not safe for passengers because the airstrikes target them,” he said.

In another development, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths held talks with a Yemeni delegation, led by spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam, in the Omani capital, Muscat.

During the meeting, Griffiths was briefed on the Ansarullah reasons for their absence from the latest round of the peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva, Yemen’s official SABA news agency reported.

The Muscat discussions, the report said, also covered “necessary measures” needed for negotiations “as soon as possible” between Yemen’s warring sides.

A delegation from Yemen’s former government has left UN-brokered talks in Geneva after representatives of the Ansarullah movement were prevented from attending the negotiations by Saudi Arabia.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team