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Roadside bomb kills over dozen Saudi mercenaries in SW Yemen

Friday, 16 March 2018 6:26 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 17 March 2018 11:21 AM ]

Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to Yemen's resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, ride in the back of a pickup truck with mounted heavy machine gun in the Mesini Valley in Yemen's southeastern province of Hadhramaut on February 21, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

More than a dozen Saudi-backed militiamen loyal to Yemen's resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, have been killed when a roadside bomb explosion ripped through their military vehicle in the country’s southwestern province of Ta’izz.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni troops and allied fighters from Popular Committees detonated a bomb as a vehicle was travelling north of Khalid military camp in the Mawza district, killing 14 Saudi mercenaries.

The source added that Yemeni soldiers and their allies also launched a number of artillery rounds at the gatherings of Saudi-backed militiamen in the same region, leaving scores of them killed and injured.

Yemeni snipers shoot dead Saudi soldier in Asir

Meanwhile, Yemeni snipers have shot and killed a Saudi trooper in the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Asir in retaliation to the Riyadh regime’s incessant aerial bombardment campaign against their impoverished and war-ravaged country.

An unnamed Yemeni military official said Yemeni forces fatally shot the Saudi soldier at Sahwa military base.

Yemenis check the damage in the aftermath of a Saudi airstrike in the Yemeni capital Sana’a on March 8, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

About 14,000 people have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against Yemen 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.

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

A high-ranking UN aid official recently warned against the “catastrophic” living conditions in Yemen, stating that there is a growing risk of famine and cholera there.

A Yemeni infant receives a diphtheria vaccine at a health center in the capital Sana’a on March 14, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

“After three years of conflict, conditions in Yemen are catastrophic,” John Ging, UN director of aid operations, told the UN Security Council on February 27.

He added, “People's lives have continued unraveling. Conflict has escalated since November driving an estimated 100,000 people from their homes.”

Ging further noted that cholera has infected 1.1 million people in Yemen since last April, and a new outbreak of diphtheria has occurred in the war-ravaged Arab country since 1982.

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