SANAA, YEMEN // Saudi-led airstrikes yesterday pounded a Houthi base in central Sanaa, killing at least 45 police commandos.
Hundreds of police had been waiting at the base for weapons and ammunition, before going south to take on forces loyal to internationally recognised president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.
At least 286 were wounded in the strikes by the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels allied to the forces of the ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Warplanes targeted rebel forces across Yemen, including a naval base in western Hodeidah controlled by the Houthis, and the northern Houthi strongholds of Saada and Hajjah.
Witnesses at the police base, close to the presidential palace in the centre of Sanaa, said Houthi militiamen were also present at the time of the strikes, many of them wearing traditional Yemeni clothes.
The raid hit a weapons dump and brought down least three buildings inside the compound.
At least 15 ambulances rushed to the scene within 30 minutes and thick black smoke covering the whole area, obstructing visibility.
Shops and administrative buildings – including the empty Saudi embassy – suffered damage, with metal shutters twisted off their frames, windows broken and doors blown off their hinges.
Streets were littered with shattered glass, toppled street lights and overturned cars.
Residents said that communications were down, except for landlines, and that fighting had intensified on the outskirts of the city.
In the southern province of Daleh, the coalition launched an early morning attack on a Houthi-held military camp north of the provincial capital.
Anti-rebel militiamen have been trying to retake the camp, and clashes there have killed more than 60 fighters on both sides over the past 48 hours, a local government official said.
Pro-Hadi forces said on Tuesday they had regained control of the provincial capital, Daleh.
The coalition also raided rebel positions in the central city of Dhammar and in Taez province, as well as in oil-rich Marib to the east.
Meanwhile, the UN is trying to reschedule peace talks for Yemen that had originally been due to begin in Geneva today.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has ordered his special envoy to step up efforts have all parties agree to a ceasefire and a new date for talks, his spokesman said.
This week’s Geneva talks were scrapped after Mr Hadi demanded that the rebels withdraw from territory they have seized before the negotiations begin.
The UN says a more than half a million people have been displaced in the conflict since the Houthis and allies began their southward advance in March.
Aid organisations say there is a desperate shortage of fuel, water and medical supplies.
World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan said yesterday that “almost 7.5 million people are in urgent need of medical help”.
“Hospitals around the country are closing down their emergency operations rooms and intensive care units due to shortages in staff and fuel for generators,” Ms Chan said. “The health and lives of millions of people are at risk.”
She said the conflict had killed 2,000, including 1,037 civilians, and wounded 8,000.
Relief agency Oxfam warned on Tuesday that at least 16 million Yemenis, or two thirds of the population, had no access to clean drinking water.
* Associated Press
