A humanitarian organization has warned of an aggravating situation in the Yemeni southern city of Aden as Saudi Arabia’s deadly airstrikes against the impoverished Arab country continue unabated.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders issued the warning on Tuesday, saying the situation is “worsening by the day.”
Aden has been the scene of fierce clashes between forces loyal to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and members of popular committees backed by Houthis, with witnesses saying that Saudi-led naval forces shelled the positions of the revolutionaries across the city, a claim denied by the Saudis.
According to Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, MSF’s representative in Yemen, medics in the port city have “not received large numbers of casualties over the past few days due to the difficulties faced in trying to reach a hospital.”
The organization, which has a team of 140 local staff and eight expatriates at a hospital in Aden, says its priority is “to find a way to send a supporting medical team.”
Also on Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the humanitarian situation across Yemen as “very difficult… (with) naval, air and ground routes cut off.”
ICRC spokeswoman Marie Claire Feghali, meanwhile, said the state of affairs in Aden is “catastrophic to say the least,” adding that many people are not able to escape the city which sees war “on every street, in every corner.”
Saudi Arabia’s military aggression against Yemen started on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to Hadi. The airstrikes have killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more.
A fresh Saudi airstrikes on Yemen’s southwestern province of Ibb claimed the lives of at least six school students on Tuesday.
According to reports, warplanes pounded the province under the pretext of bombing the Yemeni army’s Al Hamza Brigade.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday that over 540 people have died and 1,700 wounded by the violence across Yemen, saying that the death toll is related to the time period between March 19 and April 6, 2015.
The UN also says at least 74 children have been killed since the beginning of Saudi strikes — though the real figure is thought to be much higher — while more than 100,000 have been displaced.
