At least five civilians have been killed and several others injured when Saudi fighter jets carried out a string of airstrikes against a residential neighborhood in Yemen’s western coastal province of Hudaydah as the Riyadh regime continues with its bombardment campaign against its impoverished neighbor.
Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told al-Masirah television network that Saudi military aircraft had launched three aerial assaults against an area in the al-Hali district of the province, located 150 kilometers southwest of the capital Sana'a, on Thursday afternoon.
The sources added that five people had lost their lives in the attacks, while a number of others sustained injuries.
Earlier in the day, Saudi warplanes struck Sa’ada airport as well as Kahlan military base, situated 3 kilometers northeast of the mountainous northwestern city of Sa'ada, with cluster bombs.
There were no immediate reports about the extent of damage caused in the airstrikes.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured since March 2015.
The United Nations says a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.
A high-ranking UN aid official recently warned against the “catastrophic” living conditions in Yemen, stating that there was a growing risk of famine and cholera there.
“After three years of conflict, conditions in Yemen are catastrophic,” John Ging, UN director of aid operations, told the UN Security Council on February 27.
He added, “People's lives have continued unraveling. Conflict has escalated since November driving an estimated 100,000 people from their homes.”
Ging said cholera had infected 1.1 million people in Yemen since last April, and a new outbreak of diphtheria had occurred in the war-ravaged Arab country since 1982.