Saudi Arabia conducts fresh attacks on areas across Yemen

Saudi Arabia has conducted fresh attacks on Yemen as international organizations voice concern about the humanitarian situation in the impoverished Arab country.

According to local media outlets, Saudi warplanes bombarded the Yemeni military base of al-Anad in the southwestern province of Lahij early on Friday.

The Saudi jets also targeted an area in the central province of Ma’rib with five airstrikes and also bombarded the district of Lawdar in the southern province of Abyan.

There have been no reports on the possible casualties or damage as a result of the Saudi attacks.

In retaliation for the Saudi airstrikes, Yemen’s Ansarullah fighters along with Yemeni army forces targeted an area in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan with as many as 12 Katyusha rockets.

The developments come as the humanitarian situation in Yemen has become critical, with many international aid organizations seeking a safe passage into the country to send much-needed medical and humanitarian supplies to the country. More than four months of the Saudi airstrikes have caused severe shortages in basic necessities and nine million people remain in dire need of immediate assistance across Yemen.

Joanne Liu, the president of Doctors Without Borders, which is also known by its French acronym, MSF, said in a telephone interview with AFP from Yemen's capital city of Sana’a on Thursday that the Saudi blockade of the impoverished state is killing as many civilians as the Saudi military aggression.

Liu also stressed the need for “ways to get supplies to come in a safe way" so that "people can get their medicine and not die" of easily treatable diseases.

Also on Thursday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) managed to distribute food to around 340,000 people in eight areas of the southwestern Yemeni port city of Aden.

“We are challenging the odds to reach tens of thousands of people who would go hungry without food assistance,” said Muhannad Hadi, the WFP regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

On March 26, Saudi Arabia began its military aggression against Yemen – without a UN mandate – in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and to restore power to the fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, an ally of Riyadh.

According to local sources, Saudi Arabia’s onslaught has so far claimed nearly 5,000 lives and displaced more than a million people inside the country.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk