News / Yemen

Large explosion kills 7 militiamen in Yemen's Aden

Sunday, 23 April 2017 1:33 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 23 April 2017 5:10 PM ]

Smoke billows in the background from an explosion triggered by miscarriage of a shipment of landmines and missiles in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, April 23, 2017. (via social media)

At least seven militiamen have been killed and over a dozen others have been injured after a shipment of ammunition accidentally went off in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, local officials say.

The incident occurred on Sunday morning, when a lorry laden with mines and missiles was unloading its shipment in the arms depot of Jabal al-Hadid military camp in the center of the city, local emergency and health officials said.

They added that miscarriage of the explosives triggered a huge explosion, which killed all the guards standing around the vehicle and injured some 15 other militiamen in the vicinity of the blast site.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has been heavily bombarding Yemen as part of a brutal campaign against its impoverished southern neighbor in an attempt to reinstall Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's former president and a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, which is in control of large parts of Yemen including the capital Sana'a.

Hadi, who initially fled the country to Riyadh, managed to capture Aden in July 2015 with the military help of the regime in Riyadh after it fell in the hands of Houthis in September 2014.

Since then, Hadi, along with his supporters and militiamen, have turned the port city to their base, calling it the country's temporary capital, and have gone hand-in-hand with the Saudi war machine against his own people.

Yemeni school girls walk outside a school that was damaged in a Saudi airstrike in the southern Yemeni city of Ta'izz, March 16, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Over the past two years, Houthis have been running state affairs and defending Yemeni people against the Saudi campaign.

Latest tallies show that the imposed war has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis and wounded thousands more. The Saudi aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.

Certain Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, are key partners to the campaign, which lacks any international mandate and has faced increasing criticism.

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