Fresh Saudi airstrikes leave dozen more civilians dead in SW Yemen

At least a dozen people have lost their lives in a fresh Saudi airstrike against a civilian target in Yemen’s southwestern province of Ta’izz as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its devastating aerial campaign against its crisis-stricken southern neighbor.

Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the Saudi military aircraft on Thursday struck a bridge linking the al-Barh area of Maqbanah district to Hees town, killing four people.

Eight more lost their lives when Saudi jets targeted a civilian car in another part of the province, situated 260 kilometers south of the capital Sana'a. 

Earlier in the day, Saudi warplanes bombarded residential neighborhoods in the Ghamar district of Yemen’s mountainous northwestern province of Sa’ada, killing eight people. Two women, a child and three paramedics were among those killed.

Three civilians were also killed when Saudi fighter jets carried out three aerial attacks against al-Ghad area in the Razih district of the same Yemeni province.

Separately, Saudi warplanes conducted four aerial assaults against the Sawar al-Afsal area of Razih district, though no reports of casualties were immediately available.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate the former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.

More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign more than two and a half years ago. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war.

The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen.

According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, the cholera outbreak has killed 2,167 people since the end of April and is suspected to have infected 841,906.

On November 26, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said that more than 11 million children in Yemen were in acute need of aid, stressing that it was estimated that every 10 minutes a child died of a preventable disease there.

Additionally, the UN has described the current level of hunger in Yemen as “unprecedented,” emphasizing that 17 million people are now food insecure in the country.

It added that 6.8 million, meaning almost one in four people, do not have enough food and rely entirely on external assistance.

A recent survey showed that almost one third of families had gaps in their diets, and hardly ever consumed foods like pulses, vegetables, fruit, dairy products or meat.

More than 3 million pregnant and nursing women and children under 5 also need support to prevent or cure malnutrition.

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