Fresh Aid Reaches Yemen Capital as Clashes Rage in South

The Red Cross on Saturday delivered a second planeload of aid to war-battered Yemen in as many days, as the Saudi-led coalition stepped up air raids on allies of Iran-backed rebels.

The aid is urgently needed for hundreds wounded in fighting between pro-government forces and the Shiite Huthi rebels, who are allied to troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Coalition warplanes on Saturday launched at least 11 raids around Sanhane, hometown of Saleh southwest of Sanaa, and a camp of special forces loyal to the ex-strongman, witnesses said.

The strikes came after fierce clashes in south Yemen killed at least 25 people overnight, and air raids against Huthi positions in Aden, Yemen's second city.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said its plane landed in Sanaa with medical equipment to treat the wounded after weeks of intense fighting across the country.

"The new cargo is 35.6 tons, of which 32 tons is medical aid and the rest water purifying equipment, electric power generators and tents," said ICRC spokeswoman Marie Claire Feghali.

The Red Cross and the U.N. also sent planes to Sanaa on Friday, each carrying 16 tonnes of medicine and equipment, the first aid supplies to reach the capital since the Saudi-led campaign was launched late last month.

More than two weeks of heavy bombardment against opponents of exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and fighting between rival militias has prompted the U.N. to call for a freeze in the violence.

U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klaauw, said an "immediate humanitarian pause in this conflict" was desperately needed to step up aid deliveries.

"The situation in Aden is extremely, extremely preoccupying if not catastrophic," he said, warning that the southern port city had fallen prey to "urban warfare" and "uncontrollable militias".

The World Health Organization says nearly 650 people have been killed and more than 2,000 injured in the recent escalation in violence.

- Fighting, air raids - 

Street fighting that broke out late Friday and continued overnight in Aden between the Huthis and Hadi loyalists killed at least 25 people, including three civilians, said a health official in the city.

Three civilians -- an elderly woman, a man and a child -- were killed by rebel snipers, the official said.

Nine coalition air strikes Saturday hit the region around Sanhane, destroying a  police station where rebels stockpiled weapons and cutting off a road linking Sanaa to Marib further east, residents said.

Two other raids struck the camp of special forces loyal to Saleh in the central Baida province, witnesses said.

Elsewhere, Sunni tribesmen who support Hadi ambushed and killed 18 rebels on the road between Taez to Lahj as they headed for Aden, military sources said.

The fighting has been so fierce in south Yemen that hundreds of civilians have fled across the Gulf of Aden. 

The U.N. refugee agency UNRWA says at least 900 people, most of them Somalis, but also including Yemenis, arrived in the Horn of Africa in the past 10 days. 

Officials in Somalia said Saturday that more than 400 Somali nationals, many of them women, children and elderly, have returned to their war-torn home country as security in Yemen evaporates. 

Yemen, strategically located near key shipping routes and bordering oil-rich Saudi Arabia, was plunged into chaos last year when the Huthis seized Sanaa, forcing Hadi to flee to Aden and then Riyadh.

The coalition says it will continue its raids on Yemen until the Huthis retreat to their Saada mountain stronghold in the north.

Elsewhere, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is expected in Riyadh late Saturday to discuss the Yemen crisis and voice support for Hadi, a diplomatic source said.

On Friday, Pakistan's parliament rejected a Saudi call for Islamabad to join the military coalition against the Huthis by unanimous vote, proposing instead to mediate an end to the conflict.