Houthi fighters and allied army units clashed with local militias in the southern Yemeni city of Aden yesterday, and eyewitnesses said gun battles and heavy shelling ripped through a downtown district near the city’s port.
The Houthi forces have been battling to take Aden, a last foothold of fighters loyal to Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, advancing to the city centre despite 11 days of air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition of mainly Gulf air forces.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia launched the air strikes on March 26 in an attempt to turn back the Iran-allied Shi’ite Houthis, who already control Yemen’s capital Sanaa, and restore some of Hadi’s crumbling authority.
The air and sea campaign has targeted Houthi convoys, missiles and weapons stores and cut off any possible outside reinforcements – although the Houthis deny Saudi accusations that they are armed by Tehran.
The fighting has failed so far to inflict any decisive defeat on the Houthis, or the supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who are fighting alongside them, but the growing death toll and humanitarian suffering has alarmed aid groups.
Clashes have failed so far to inflict any decisive defeat on the Houthis
The United Nations said on Thursday that more than 500 people had been killed in two weeks of fighting in Yemen, while the International Committee of the Red Cross has appealed for an immediate 24-hour pause in fighting to allow aid into Yemen.
The ICRC, which has blamed the Saudi-led coalition for delays in aid shipments, said it received approval to fly in medical supplies and staff and hoped to send two planes today.
A spokesman for the military coalition said the ICRC had approval to fly in aid on Sunday but pulled out because of problems with the company from which it chartered a plane.
Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said a Sudanese flight was prevented from landing at Sanaa yesterday by authorities in the Houthi-run capital, and a Turkish evacuation flight was held up. “Usually, the delay is because of the other side,” he said.
A pro-Hadi militia source said 36 Houthi and allied fighters were killed yesterday in Aden’s central Mualla district, near the port, while 11 of Hadi’s combatants died.