Saudi strikes martyr 9 more people in Yemen

Saudi Arabia has launched a fresh round of airstrikes targeting civilian areas across Yemen as reports suggest at least nine people have been martyred.

According to Press TV, residents in north and west Yemen said on Wednesday that Saudi warplanes attacked their residence, farms and other facilities earlier in the day, martyring and injuring scores of civilians, including children.

Four civilians were martyred in an airstrike in the suburbs of the northern city of Sa’ada, residents said. The city is a major bastion of support for the Ansarullah movement, which controls the capital Sana’a and fiercely opposes the Saudi aggression.

Five girls were also martyred in Saudi airstrikes targeting a farm in the west of Yemen in Hudaydah district, people on the ground said.

Hudaydah, a strategic port on the Red Sea, is also controlled by the Ansarullah fighters. Saudi Arabia has effectively failed to push back Ansarullah fighters from key areas they have controlled since the resignation of the former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Saudi authorities claim the illegal campaign is meant to restore power to Hadi, who is now in exile in Riyadh.

At least 15,000 people, most of them civilians, have been martyred since Saudis launched the aggression in March 2015. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war while hundreds of thousands have also been displaced as a result of the military operation, many of them now in dire humanitarian situation.

The United Nations says a record 22.2 million people across Yemen are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

The civilian casualties reported Wednesday comes amid some intensified Saudi airstrikes this week. More than a dozen people were martyred Tuesday as Saudis attacked areas across Yemen, including at districts of Tuhayat and Sahar in Hudaydah Province.

ME