A Saudi-led coalition bombarded cities and towns in southern Yemen on Tuesday, as the targeted Shia rebels accused it of killing 124 people in one of the deadliest days of its air war. The bloodshed came two days after UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed arrived in Sanaa bidding to secure a humanitarian cease-fire in a conflict estimated to have killed 3,000 people, mostly civilians.
Coalition warplanes bombed rebel positions in and around Yemen's second city Aden, targeting an intelligence headquarters and television studio in the southern port, said military officials. In neighbouring Lahj province, raids were carried out against a weapons depot and gatherings of the Shia Houthi rebels and their allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the sources said.
On Monday, coalition bombing of a market in a Lahj town killed 41 civilians and six rebels, according to an updated toll from medical officials. The Houthi-controlled Saba news agency said the air strikes killed 124 people on Monday in Lahj and other parts of Yemen, one of the deadliest days in the coalition air war launched on March 26. There was no way to verify the toll, however. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, meanwhile, said five children were among 12 people killed on Saturday at a shelter in an Aden kindergarten.
Medical sources had previously reported the deaths of six refugees in the Katyusha rocket attack, which one official blamed on the rebels. The nine-nation Saudi-led coalition launched the air strikes on Yemen to halt an advance by the Iran-backed Houthis who drove President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi into exile. More than one million people have been displaced inside the country since March, joining the more than 300,000 displaced there before the fighting began, and more than 46,000 people have fled Yemen, according to the UNHCR.
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