Saudi Arabia threatens to attack Yemen’s Hudaydah port

Rasa - The head of Saudi-led coalition in the war on Yemen has warned that the military alliance will attack Yemen’s western port city of Hudaydah unless the United Nations intervenes.

News ID: 428388

Date: 24 March 2017 - 20:59

RNA - On Thursday, Ahmed al-Asiri claimed that the coalition seeks to transfer humanitarian assistance to Yemen from the Red Sea port city of Mokha.

The United Nations has already rejected a call by Saudi Arabia and its allies to supervise Hudaydah, where tens of refugees were killed last week in an aerial attack blamed on Riyadh.

More than 40 people lost their lives and dozens of others were injured in an apparent Saudi airstrike that hit a boat carrying Somali refugees near Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Friday.

Riyadh and its allies have denied being behind the air raid despite witness accounts citing an Apache helicopter - which is only used by Saudi Arabia in the war on Yemen - to have attacked the vessel.

The UN and Russia have warned against the humanitarian ramifications of any Saudi-led attack on the port city.

During a Wednesday meeting of the UN Security Council convened by Russia, the Kremlin warned about “grave humanitarian consequences” that would come if Saudi Arabia goes ahead with a plan to attack Yemen’s western port city of Hudaydah.

The attendants in the UNSC meeting discussed the grave humanitarian situation in Yemen and efforts toward a peaceful conclusion of the two-year-long war imposed by the Saudi regime on the Yemeni people.

Hudaydah is currently under the control of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah fighters, who have been defending the impoverished country against the Saudi aggression since March 2015. The city, Yemen’s fourth largest and its biggest port, served as a thoroughfare for the transit of about 70 percent of Yemen’s food imports in the pre-war years.

When the Saudi regime started pounding the crisis-hit country, Hudaydah turned into a primary entry point for humanitarian aid and fuel meant for areas inside Yemen, including the capital, Sana’a.

If the city falls under the control of Saudi forces and mercenary soldiers, the flow of humanitarian assistance toward those areas would be blocked.

On March 13, Moscow also warned about the critical situation of the port city in providing its people with much-needed humanitarian aid.

The “plans to storm Yemen’s biggest port of Hudaydah give rise to serious concerns,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, adding that the fall of the city would cut Sana’a from "food and humanitarian aid supplies.” She also said the humanitarian situation in Yemen was “catastrophic.”

On Wednesday, the World Food Programme (WFP) said 60 percent of Yemenis, some 17 million people, faced a “crisis” and were in urgent need of food as a direct result of the Saudi war.

Sauid troop killed

On Thursday, the Saudi Interior Ministry said that Saudi border guard Atallah Yassine al-Anzihas been killed following rocket attacks by Yemeni forces on a Saudi military base in the kingdom's southern border region of Dhahran Janoub.

The Saudi campaign has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis. The aggression was meant to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's president who has resigned and is a staunch ally of Riyadh.

The campaign also sought to undermine Houthis. However, due to resistance from the Yemeni nation, the regime in Riyadh has so far failed to achieve success and suffered considerable human loss in its military.

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