MSF halts work in Yemen’s militia-held Aden after patient abducted, killed

International medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has stopped admitting patients to its hospital in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, after a group of armed assailants stormed the medical facility, threatened staff there and kidnapped and killed a patient.

The Geneva-based humanitarian non-governmental organization said on Thursday that the unknown gunmen had raided its emergency trauma hospital in Aden and terrorized guards as well as medics at the medical facility.

Aden is controlled by Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

MSF went on to say that the armed men then kidnapped a patient, who had been admitted the day before. The patient was found dead on a street in the al- Mansurah district of the city.

“Following this incident, we have no choice but to suspend the admission of patients until further notice,” Caroline Seguin, MSF's program manager for Yemen, said.

A Yemeni police commander, requesting anonymity, said the patient had been wounded in a battle between rival armed groups and hospitalized at the MSF clinic.

Separately, three women and a man lost their lives when Saudi-backed militiamen targeted their residential building in an area of al-Hawak district in Yemen’s western coastal province of Hudaydah. A civilian sustained injuries in the incident as well.

Moreover, four people were killed when Saudi military aircraft struck a water tanker in the al-Sawadiyah district of the central Yemeni province of al-Bayda.

Meanwhile, Yemeni snipers, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, managed to kill and injure some 30 Saudi-paid militiamen during operations in Saudi Arabia’s southern border areas of Najran and Jizan.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

According to a report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.                                                                      

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