Seven killed, 12 injured by Saudi airstrike in Yemen: media

Armed Yemeni tribesmen from the Popular Resistance Committees, supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, hold a position in the area of Sirwah, west of Marib city, on December 18, 2015. (AFP/Abdullah al-Qadry)

At least seven people have been killed and 12 others wounded in an airstrike carried out by Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s western region despite a fragile truce.

Yemen’s al-Masirah television reported on Monday that the Saudi airstrike targeted the Haya al-Shuhada district of the city of al-Hudaydah.

The latest attack came shortly after six days of talks between a delegation of representatives from both the Houthi rebel movement and the government of embattled Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi closed in the Swiss village of Magglingen.

Although a member of Hadi’s delegate said the negotiations had ended without any agreement to end the Saudi aggression against Yemen, the United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said he was optimistic that a fully-respected ceasefire deal would soon come into force in Yemen. The next round of the talks aimed at ending the Yemeni conflict is expected to be held on January 14 next year.

Late Sunday, at least 25 Saudi soldiers were killed in a retaliatory missile attack by Houthi fighters and allied army units against the al-Tawal border crossing, which links Yemen’s northwestern province of Hajjah to Jizan.

At least five women were also killed in a Saudi airstrike against Yemen’s northwestern Sa’ada Province.

The Saudi attacks come despite a seven-day ceasefire deal that had been put in place on December 15, when the talks in Switzerland began.

On December 18, the head of Houthi's Political Council, Saleh Ali al-Sammad, accused Saudi Arabia of taking advantage of the ceasefire, saying Riyadh had intensified its airstrikes against the country’s Ma’rib, Ta’izz, and Jawf provinces.

Saudi Arabia’s military attacks against impoverished Yemen, which started in late March, have so far claimed the lives of more than 7,500 people and injured over 14,000 others. 

Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material