Aden // The Saudi-led coalition resumed air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen on Sunday after the UN failed to secure an extension to a 72-hour ceasefire that was repeatedly broken by the Iran-backed rebels.
Coalition warplanes struck positions around Sanaa of the Houthis and their allies, renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, military officials and rebel media said.
The dawn raids also hit positions in Marib province, east of the rebel-held capital, and the south-western province of Taez, where Houthi fighters launched an artillery attack on government forces. Radar positions were also targeted in the Houthi-controlled city of Hodeida, residents reported.
The UN special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, appealed for a renewal of the ceasefire before it expired at midnight on Saturday, but Yemeni foreign minister Abdelmalek Al Mekhlafi said it would be pointless given the rebel violations of the ceasefire.
“An extension would be useless, because even if we accept it, the other party does not make any commitment to respect the ceasefire,” Mr Al Mekhlafi.
“We respect the UN envoy’s call for an extension, but in effect, there was no truce due to the violations” by the rebels, he said.
The army chief of staff Mohammed Ali Al Miqdashi said the Houthis “deliberately thwarted the truce and that further convinced our military and political leadership of their unwillingness to accept a peace”.
Mr Cheikh Ahmed, who arrived in Sanaa on Sunday to discuss political solutions to the conflict with rebel leaders, said the ceasefire had allowed humanitarian aid to reach areas that were earlier inaccessible.
The Saudi-led coalition suspended its air campaign during the truce but fighting on the ground showed no signs of abating. Fierce clashes raged in northern regions along the borders with Saudi Arabia over the weekend, killing at least 10 rebels and four Yemeni soldiers, military officials said. Saudi civil defence also reported cross-border bombing which wounded a Yemeni resident of the south-western city if Najran.
Later on Sunday, it said that more shelling from Yemen damaged two homes in the Jazan region without causing casualties.
The latest truce was the sixth attempt to end the fighting since the coalition intervened in March last year to support the internationally recognised government of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi after the Houthi rebels and their allies overran much of the country.
The previous ceasefire attempt began in April and collapsed as UN-brokered peace talks hosted by Kuwait broke down in August.
Nearly 6,900 people have been killed in the conflict, more than half of them civilians, while an additional three million are displaced and millions more need food aid. The fighting has also affected civilian infrastructure such as power and water supply and health services.
The health ministry said on Sunday that nine people had died of cholera in Aden.
Another 10 cases had been confirmed in the southern port city, which hosts the government’s temporary headquarters, and about 200 across the country, the ministry said.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
