Arab coalition strikes Houthi targets in Yemen
No let-up in attacks as health ministry says 36 police commandos killed in Sanaa and WHO releases new casualty figures.
Arab coalition jets have strucked several cities across Yemen as relief organisations warn of a deteriorating humanitarian situation.
Fighter jets targeted a Houthi-controlled arms depot in Fajj Attan, a neighbourhood overlooking the Yemeni capital Sanaa, residents said on Wednesday.
Air strikes also severely damaged a Houthi rebel-controlled naval base in the province of al-Hudaydah on the Red Sea coast, residents said.
Elsewhere in Yemen, coalition raids hit the northern province of Hajja, near the border with Saudi Arabia, witnesses said.
Separately, Yemen’s health ministry said 36 police commandos were killed in an air strike that targeted a police camp in Sanaa.
The ministry, which is controlled by the Iran-allied Houthis, said at least another 100 members of the force were wounded in Wednesday’s attack.
Rising death toll
Security officials said 150 soldiers were present at the Sanaa camp run by commanders loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president, at the time of the air strike.
The ministry’s report could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
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Against this backdrop of fighting, a new report by Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, said the conflict in Yemen had left up to 2,000 people dead and 8,000 wounded, including hundreds of women and children.
She did not specify how many of the dead were civilians.
Chan said that the killings sometimes included whole families, giving the example of a 65-year-old woman named Fathiya who lost 13 members of her family in an attack that left her the only guardian of three surviving grandchildren.
Earlier this week, Oxfam, the international humanitarian group, said that up to 16 million people in Yemen do not have access to clean water.
Half a million people have been displaced across the country.
The Arab coalition’s campaign of air strikes has devastated Houthi positions, ammunition depots and bases, but it has largely failed to pave the way for the recapture of the strategic southern city of Aden.
The internationally recognised president of Yemen, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi , declared Aden the country’s temporary capital before fleeing to Saudi Arabia.
