ANSD : Airstrike kills four at Yemen radio station

SAT 27 - 4 - 2024

Date: Sep 17, 2018
Source: The Daily Star

Airstrike kills four at Yemen radio station

DUBAI/SANAA: An airstrike by the Arab coalition against a radio station in Yemen’s Houthi-held port city of Hudaida killed four people Sunday, residents and medical sources said.

The attack took place as U.N. officials engaged in shuttle diplomacy to arrange a resumption of peace talks in the 4-year-old conflict.

The coalition fighting the Houthis has intensified its air campaign and resumed an offensive to capture Hudaida after U.N.-sponsored peace talks collapsed earlier this month when the Houthi delegation failed to show up.

The renewed attacks on the Red Sea port city, a lifeline for millions of Yemenis, could put further pressure on U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths, who has said he will press ahead with diplomacy.

Four employees of the Al-Maraweah radio station were killed in Al-Marawa district in Hudaida when coalition warplanes bombed its building, residents and medical sources told Reuters.

The Houthis’ Al-Massirah TV had said earlier that four employees were killed, three of them guards.

According to medical sources in Hudaida province, at least 32 insurgents have been killed and 14 others wounded in clashes and airstrikes since Saturday.

The Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and armed by the West, has said taking control of Hudaida would force the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement to the negotiating

table by cutting off its main supply line. Coalition-backed Yemeni forces last week seized the main road linking Hudaida to the rebel-held capital Sanaa as part of a strategy to isolate the two cities, both held by the Houthi group.The United Nations is renewing efforts to end Yemen’s war under a peace plan that calls on the Houthis and the internationally recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia, to work on a peace deal under a transitional governing body. The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, meanwhile arrived in Sanaa Sunday in an effort to agree on a new date for peace talks, Yemeni officials said.

They said Griffiths met with Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of the rebels, and other top rebel officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

Rebel-run news agency SABA said the United Nations struck an agreement to evacuate Houthi wounded by using Sanaa airport in a sign that diplomacy has started to pay off.

Griffiths met last week with representatives of the rebels in Muscat, Oman’s capital, to discuss ways to ensure their participation in future consultations. He sought earlier last week to downplay the significance of the failure of launching peace talks, saying Saturday that he would head back to Yemen and neighboring Oman “within days” to work toward an agreement on a new date.

The Houthis did not show up in Geneva for talks earlier this month after they said their plane should be provided by a neutral party and should not be inspected by the coalition. They also asked to evacuate some of their wounded to Oman or Europe.

Hisham Sharaf Abdallah, the Houthi foreign minister, said his side supported the U.N.’s peace efforts and urged it to pressure the coalition to stop “targeting civilians,” SABA reported.

He called for confidence-building measures such as the reopening of Sanaa airport to commercial flights and the payment of civil servants’ salaries in all areas of Yemen.

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