Saudis Continue Strikes on Yemen Despite Ceasefire

Date: 19 April 2020 - 21:24

News ID: ۷۷۶۲۸

SANAA (Dispatches) – The Saudi-led coalition is still carrying out airstrikes in a number of Yemeni provinces despite its claim of a ceasefire to stem the coronavirus pandemic.
The Saudi-led coalition’s warplanes bombarded residential areas in the cities of Sarwah and Mojzer in the western province of Ma’rib. They also carried out similar air raids in the provinces of Sa’ada and al-Jawf.
A Yemeni woman was killed by Saudi and Emirati snipers in the province of Ta’iz.
The fresh airstrikes came less than 48 hours after the Saudi warplanes bombarded Wadi Dhahr area of the Hamdan district in the capital, Sana’a, as well as an area close to its hospital three times.
In the early hours of Thursday, Saudi fighter jets also carried out strikes against Aroush and Watda areas of Khawlan district, Sana’a Province.
The airstrikes come despite claims by the invaders that they were halting military operations in support of United Nations peace efforts and to avoid further spread of the new coronavirus in Yemen.
In another development in the country, UAE-backed separatists in southern Yemen have warned of an "imminent war” with Saudi-sponsored militants as divisions between the two sides continue to deepen.
In a statement, the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC) said it had informed ambassadors of major countries to Yemen and the UN envoy Martin Griffiths that "the outbreak of war is imminent”.
The group accused Riyadh-backed government of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi of violating a power-sharing settlement signed between the two sides last year.
The STC accused the former government of trying to regain control of southern provinces in violation of a "sustainable political agreement” reached last November.
The statement also said that Hadi’s loyalists had attempted to overrun Aden, which was seized by the separatists last August.
Both the UAE-sponsored separatists and Saudi-backed militants loyal to Hadi serve a Riyadh-led military coalition which has been waging a bloody war on Yemeni people since March 2015.
Riyadh and its allies have been widely criticized for the high civilian death toll resulted from their bombing campaign in Yemen since early 2015.
At least 80 percent of the 28 million-strong population of Yemen is reliant on aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.