Fears were growing of a humanitarian crisis in Yemen after Saudi-backed government forces launched a series of attacks on rebel-held Hodeida, as a charity warned Wednesday that more than five million children were at risk of famine in the war-torn state.
The Huthi rebels accused the government and its Saudi-led allies of deliberately targeting food warehouses as the coalition said it had resumed a “military operation to liberate Hodeida and its port”.
Pro-government forces and medical sources in Hodeida province told AFP that 40 Huthis had been killed around the embattled city since Monday night.
The fight for Hodeida, which the Huthis seized in 2014, was put on hold for 11 weeks as the United Nations struggled to bring warring parties to peace talks in Geneva.
But the talks collapsed earlier this month after the northern Yemeni rebels refused to attend.
The Red Sea port city is a vital lifeline for aid shipments to Yemen, the most impoverished country in the Arab world. The UN has warned that any major fighting could halt the distribution of food to eight million Yemenis dependent on aid to survive.
Disruption to supplies coming through Hodeida could “cause starvation on an unprecedented scale”, charity Save the Children said in a report on Wednesday.
An extra one million children now risk falling into famine as food and fuel prices soar, bringing the total to 5.2 million, the charity said.
