Russia warns against planned Saudi attack in Yemen

Russia has warned against an imminent military attack by Saudi Arabia against the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, emphasizing that the offensive would exacerbate the humanitarian situation in Yemen.

The “plans to storm Yemen’s biggest port of Hudaydah give rise to serious concerns,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement published on the ministry’s official website on Monday.

She added that battles in the area “would not only inevitably lead to a mass exodus of the [local] population but would also de facto cut the [Yemeni] capital of Sana’a from… food and humanitarian aid supplies.”

Zakharova described the humanitarian situation in Yemen as “catastrophic.” She also condemned a March 10 Saudi-led airstrike on a marketplace in the al-Khawkhah district of Hudaydah.

Twenty six people, including 20 civilians and six Ansarullah fighters, were martyred in the raid, according to AFP.

Hudaydah is currently under the control of Ansarullah fighters who have been defending Yemen against the Saudi military offensive aimed at restoring power to resigned president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

10 civilians injured in Saudi cluster bomb attack

Meanwhile, nearly a dozen civilians sustained injuries when Saudi fighter jets carried out an aerial attack against a residential area in northern Yemen using internationally-banned cluster bombs.

Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ten people were injured when Saudi military aircraft struck the northwestern city of Sa’ada, located 240 kilometers north of the capital Sana’a, on Monday evening, Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.

MG