At least seven people have lost their lives and several others sustained injuries when Saudi fighter jets carried out a raft of aerial attacks against residential neighborhoods across Yemen.
On Saturday, Saudi military aircraft struck an area in the Red Sea port city of Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of the capital, Sana'a, leaving five children dead, Arabic-language al-Masirah television news network reported.
A couple and their son also lost their lives when Saudi fighter jets struck a house in Manjadah village in Yemen’s southwestern province of Dhamar.
Later in the day, six aerial attacks hit Khalid military base in the Mawza' district of the southwestern Ta’izz Province. However, there were no immediate reports of casualties and the extent of damage caused.
Saudi military aircraft also bombarded an area in the city of Sirwah, which lies about 120 kilometers east of the capital, with no casualties reported.
Yemeni sniper fire kills 2 Saudi troopers in Jizan
Meanwhile, Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have shot dead two Saudi troops in the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Jizan in response to Riyadh's devastating aerial bombardment campaign against their country.
They killed two Saudi troops in the Khobah area of Jizan, located 969 kilometers south of Riyadh, on Saturday afternoon.
Army troops and Popular Committee fighters also launched an attack on the al-Montazah and Shabakah outposts of the same Saudi region. No reports of casualties among Saudi troops were available in the wake of the attacks.
Saudi war on Yemen inflicts millions of dollars on tourism
Separately, Yemen’s Executive Director of the Tourism Promotion Board Abdulrahman al-Na'mi told the official Saba news agency on Saturday that the Saudi military aggression against Yemen has led to the destruction of more than 200 tourist sites, and inflicted a loss of 4.5 billion dollars on the country.
Na'mi added that the Saudi aerial attacks have also left between 80,000 and 90,000 people engaged in the sector of tourism without a job.
He went on to say that the continued Saudi aggression on Yemen threatens the country’s historical and cultural sites, which are listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), noting that Saudi Arabia’s deliberate targeting of such sites is tantamount to practices of Daesh and other Takfiri terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.
Na'mi called on human rights groups as well as international organizations to secure the lift of the siege imposed on Yemen, especially the air embargo on Sana’a International Airport, and help alleviate the worsening humanitarian situation in the impoverished Arab country.
The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says the Saudi campaign has claimed the lives of 10,000 Yemenis and left 40,000 others wounded.
McGoldrick told reporters in Sana’a last month that the figure was based on casualty counts given by health facilities and that the actual number might be higher.
In a report released on Thursday, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in the war-torn Arab country at 12,041.
The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women.
