RIYADH, May 18: A Saudi Arabian-led coalition resumed air strikes against Yemen’s Houthi militia in Aden overnight, hours after the expiry of a truce meant to facilitate badly needed humanitarian aid, a Reuters eyewitness said. The witness said explosions could be heard near the southern city’s airport and the districts of Khor Maksar and Crater shortly the five-day ceasefire expired on Sunday at 1030 IST. No further details were immediately available. Late yesterday a spokesman for the army, much of which is allied to the Houthis, welcomed a request by the UN envoy to Yemen to extend the truce to allow more aid to be delivered to the war-damaged Arabian Peninsula country. “We welcome the call by the UN envoy to Yemen … regarding the extension of the truce and the need to deliver humanitarian aid to citizens,” Yemen’s Houthi-controlled state news agency SABA quoted Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman as saying. Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed made his appeal at the opening of a conference of Yemeni parties that convened in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss ways of ending Yemen’s political turmoil. Since Tuesday Saudi-led forces and Yemen’s Houthi militias had largely observed a ceasefire meant to allow delivery of food, fuel and medical supplies to millions of Yemenis caught in the conflict since the alliance began air strikes on March 26. Sporadic clashes had continued, however, with at least 15 killed overnight yesterday-today in the cities of Taiz and Dhalea, residents said. Relief groups say that the five days were hardly enough to allow sufficient supplies to reach the country of 25 million. Impoverished and strife-torn even before the war, Yemen is now mired in a humanitarian catastrophe, as 300,000 people have been displaced by the conflict and 12 million are short of food. “I am hopeful (there will be an extension),” Ould Cheikh Ahmed told journalists on the sidelines of the conference, attended by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. “All my first contacts indicate that we have a chance, but I am really calling on all parties to extend this for a minimum of five days.” Saudi Arabia has said that extending the truce depended on how the Houthis and their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, complied with the ceasefire. The world’s top oil exporter has accused the Houthis of violating the truce but said it would exercise self-restraint to allow the delivery of badly needed supplies to Yemenis. Yemeni Vice President Khaled Bahah, who also heads the government in exile, said his administration was in favour of extending the truce but a decision on that depended on the situation on the ground. “We need the ceasefire to continue for long, not just for a few days, but it depends on the operation on the ground,” Bahah told Reuters in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. “There is an effort for an extension, but it depends on how it is on the ground. But it’s our wish from the government side that we need to extend it,” he added. (AGENCIES)
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