Saudi airstrikes hit telecommunication targets in Yemen

A fresh wave of Saudi-led air raids has reportedly hit several telecommunication targets in the west and northwest of Yemen.

Saudi warplanes targeted and destroyed television towers in the capital city of Sana’a in the west as well as the northwestern cities of Sa’ada and Amran, Russia-based Sputnik news agency quoted a source at Yemen’s Transport Ministry as saying on Thursday.

No report has yet been released on the possible casualties of the raids, which caused Internet shutdown and telecommunication disruption in the three cities.

Reports said that the attacks were aimed at eradicating the communication facilities used by the Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.

Earlier in the day, Saudi airborne assaults struck Yemen’s Defense Ministry in Sana’a. Separate raids by Saudi fighter jets also targeted a food supply building belonging to the Yemeni army in the west of the capital.

Saudi Arabia’s air campaign against Ansarullah fighters started on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

According to figures released Thursday by Yemeni media outlets, nearly 450 people have so far been killed since the beginning of the Saudi aggression. Most deaths are reported to be women and children.

On Wednesday, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani, warned of “massive displacement and humanitarian crisis” in the restive country as civilians flee the Saudi bombings and internal clashes.

“Unless rapidly resolved, the crisis could lead to mass displacement in the wake of heavy and ongoing fighting and airstrikes,” said the UN expert.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

However, the Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.

On March 25, the embattled president fled the southern city of Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden.

The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital in September 2014. The revolutionaries said Hadi’s government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

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