Reuters
Sanaa
Two deadly car bombs hit the capital and a southern city in Yemen yesterday, state news agency Saba reported, a day after air strike and clashes killed almost 200 people nationwide.
One of the explosives-laden cars detonated near a hospital in downtown Sanaa, which the news agency controlled by Yemen’s dominant Houthi group said killed and injured “numerous” people, while another killed around 10 people in al-Bayda, capital of a province in the country’s battle-weary south.
Islamic State in Yemen has claimed responsibility for a string of recent deadly attacks against the Shia group which runs the capital, calling them apostates deserving death.
Saudi-led coalition air strikes and clashes killed at least 176 fighters and civilians in Yemen on Monday, residents and media run by the Houthi movement said, the highest daily toll since the Arab air offensive began more than three months ago.
The UN has been pushing for a halt to air raids and intensified fighting that began on March 26. More than 3,000 people have been killed since then as the Arab coalition tries stop the Houthis spreading across the country from the north.
As fighting has raged across Yemen’s south, the conflict has taken on a sectarian tinge, pitting the Houthis against local Sunni fighters who in many places fight alongside hardline Al Qaeda militants, who also revile the Houthis.
On Monday, about 63 people were killed in air strikes on Amran province in the north, among them 30 people at a market, Houthi-controlled state media agency Saba said.
In the same province, about 20 fighters and civilians were killed at a Houthi checkpoint outside the main city, also named Amran, about 50km northwest of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, local residents said.
Arab alliance war planes also killed about 60 people at a livestock market in the town of al-Foyoush in the south.
Yesterday, UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed continues meetings with Houthi officials in Sanaa to try to broker a ceasefire to allow aid deliveries.