Aden: Clashes broke out between government forces and Houthi militia in Yemen’s southwestern governorate of Taiz, resulting in multiple casualties, a government military official said to Xinhua.
The conflict, which lasted for several hours, was triggered by an attempted infiltration by Houthi fighters into positions held by Yemeni government forces on the eastern outskirts of Taiz province, said the local military source, who requested anonymity, on Saturday.
The government forces successfully repelled the Houthi assault, resulting in the death of four Houthi fighters and injuries to five others, the official confirmed, adding that two soldiers from the government side lost their lives during the fighting, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Houthi group has yet to respond to the conflict.
The recent fighting in Taiz coincides with attempts of regional and global powers to make headway in diplomatic endeavours towards restarting negotiations between the warring factions in Yemen, with the aim of renewing a prior humanitarian truce that was facilitated by the UN.
Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi rebel fighters invaded a number of northern provinces and drove the Yemeni government out of the capital city of Sanaa.
The years-long military conflict has resulted in a dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, with millions needing assistance and access to basic necessities.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Sanaa: Yemen’s Houthi rebels have released a government military commander who had been detained for eight years, a Houthi official announced in a statement.
Faisal Rajab, a commander in the Yemeni government army, was released on Sunday after a request was made by a tribal delegation from his hometown in the southern province of Abyan.
Abdulkadir al-Murtada, head of the Houthi prisoner affairs’ committee, confirmed Rajab’s release in a statement during a press conference held in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.
“With the release of the prisoner, Major General Faisal Rajab, we confirm our readiness for a (future) comprehensive prisoner swap,” al-Murtada said, urging the UN to “expedite the implementation of the prisoner exchange deal that was agreed upon in Switzerland”.
Photo: Saba News Agency
Photo: Saba News Agency
Rajab was seen being handed over to the tribal delegation during the press conference.
While welcoming Rajab’s release, Majid Fadail, the spokesman for the government negotiating delegation, tweeted that Rajab was originally supposed to be released as part of the UN-brokered prisoner swap deal implemented in mid-April, but that the Houthis insisted on delaying his release without giving any reason.
Rajab was captured in March 2015 after the Houthi rebels stormed the al-Anad Air Base in the southern province of Lahij. His name appeared on a list of around 900 prisoners who were freed in a three-day prisoner exchange in mid-April.
Yemen’s warring sides have expressed readiness for the next round of talks to end the war in the Arab state, which has been going on since late 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi militia took control of several northern cities. Tens of thousands of people died in the war, which has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
Recent peace efforts, particularly China-brokered talks that helped restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, have increased hope for a resolution to the Yemeni conflict.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Armed guards aboard a yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton have fired on approaching ships in the Gulf of Aden, prompting an intense gunfight. Yemeni authorities said the guards mistakenly opened fire on a Coast Guard vessel but the ship’s manager insisted they had clashed with pirates.
The shooting reportedly killed one Yemeni Coast Guard member and wounded another person in a hail of gunfire – the guards are said to have shot as many as 200 rounds of ammunition. The incident shows the danger faced by both shippers and security forces in the waters off the Arab world’s poorest country, even as it remains crucial for global commerce.
Details of what happened to the Kalizma remain unclear and contested, hours after the incident. The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations initially reported it as an attack with gunfire off Nishtun, in Yemen’s far east near the border with Oman.
But later, the British military operation providing support to ships across the Mideast described the attack in the Gulf of Aden as being “confirmed by authorities as government agency activity”, without elaborating.
Ambrey, a maritime intelligence company, said in a brief that a Yemeni Coast Guard contingent had approached a Cook Islands-flagged yacht that hadn’t responded to radio calls.
According to the Coast Guard, “an armed security team … onboard the yacht then opened fire on the approaching Yemenis and attempted to escape perceived pirates,” Ambrey said. The Coast Guard “returned fire and followed the yacht for approximately an hour until communications with the yacht could be established and the misunderstanding between the parties resolved”.
Ambrey said one Yemeni Coast Guard member was killed. A later statement from the Yemeni Coast Guard, posted online, acknowledged the death and said its forces along with Yemen’s navy tried to stop the Kalizma as it was operating in a “very suspicious way” close to the shore and did not answer radio calls.
“The yacht penetrated territorial waters and sailed in them without raising the flag of the yacht’s country, as well as refused to respond and stop in clear violation of international maritime law,” the Yemeni Coast Guard said.
Aashim Mongia, the owner of Mumbai’s West Coast Marine Yacht Services, which manages the Kalizma, told The Associated Press that one of the guards on board the vessel suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder. He insisted that “pirates” attacked the vessel first and came back in several waves to try to take the Kalizma, forcing the ship’s three guards to fire more than 200 rounds to protect the nine crew on board.
“If it was the Yemeni Coast Guard, why did they open fire?” Mongia asked.
Photos from the ship showed what appeared to be bullet holes from small arms fire scattered across the luxurious Kalizma.
Initially built in 1906, the Kalizma was bought by Burton for $220,000 in 1967. It was on board the ship where he gave actor and his twice-wife Elizabeth Taylor a 69.42-carat, pear-shaped diamond now known as the Taylor-Burton Diamond.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on Kalizma off Capo Caccia on the coast of Sardinia, August 1967. Photograph: Express/Getty Images
The ship later was bought by Indian investor Shirish Saraf, according to a profile by magazine Boat International. Requests for comment to Saraf’s investment firm Samena Capital were not answered.
Nishtun is held by forces allied to Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition. The Gulf of Aden is a crucial route for global trade and has seen attacks attributed to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels during the country’s yearslong civil war. Somali pirate attacks that once plagued the region have mostly stopped in recent years.
However, attacks have happened there before. In December 2020, a mysterious attack targeted a cargo ship off Nishtun. In Yemen’s war, bomb-carrying drone boats, as well as sea mines, have been used.
[ad_2]
#Shots #fired #mistakenly #Yemeni #Coast #Guard #yacht #owned #Richard #Burton
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Aden: The eight-year war in Yemen has left 11 million children in need of humanitarian aid and 2.2 million suffer from acute malnutrition, the Unicef said.
More than 540,000 children face life-threatening severe acute malnutrition and are in urgent need of medical treatment, the Unicef said in a press statement on Friday.
It warned that the likelihood of malnutrition would keep rising if appropriate measures are not taken promptly, Xinhua news agency reported.
More than 2.3 million children are living in internally displaced persons camps, where they receive inadequate care due to a lack of medicine and sanitary facilities, the Unicef said, adding that more than 11,000 children were killed or seriously injured in Yemen between March 2015 and November 2022.
Yemeni families in distress often make harmful decisions for their children, such as child marriage, child labour, or military recruitment. More than 4,000 children have been recruited as soldiers by the various warring factions in Yemen, and hundreds of schools and health facilities were attacked or used by the military, said the Unicef.
“The lives of millions of vulnerable children in Yemen remain at risk due to the almost unimaginable, unbearable, consequences of the crushing, unending war,” Unicef representative in Yemen, Peter Hawkins, was quoted as saying.
The organisation said it needed $484 million to continue its humanitarian relief to Yemeni children throughout 2023. If the funding is not secured, Unicef may have to scale back the vital assistance to Yemeni children who are at risk.
Yemen has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since late 2014, with the Houthi rebels fighting against the internationally-recognised government and its allies, which include a Saudi Arabia-led coalition.
The conflict plunged the Arab country to the brink of collapse, leaving millions of people without access to adequate nutrition.
The UN has been pushing for a cease-fire and peace talks in Yemen.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Riyadh: A team of doctors in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Thursday successfully separated Yemeni conjoined twins in an eight-hour surgery, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
The Yemeni twins— Salman and Abdullah, were joined at the pelvis and abdomen, and shared a bladder and colon.
The four-month old twins came from Al Jawf province, weighing a total of 8.6 kilograms.
The twins were in a critical condition and suffered from reproductive and urinary complications.
The surgery conducted on Thursday morning at the King Abdullah Specialist Children’s Hospital in Riyadh under the leadership of Dr Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Rabiah, adviser to the Royal Court and supervisor general of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief).
The surgery was conducted in six stages, in which 36 specialists, nurses and technicians participated.
The parents of Salman and Abdullah gave their heartfelt thanks to the Saudi leadership and medical team for helping their sons, and expressed their gratitude for the warm hospitality they received from everyone involved in caring for the boys.
This surgery is the eighth case of separating conjoined twins from Yemen.
Under the Saudi Conjoined Twins Programme, KSRelief has so far sponsored operations to separate 55 children and studied 127 cases of conjoined twins, from 23 countries.
Aden: Rashad al-Alimi, Chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, on Tuesday discussed with a European diplomatic delegation the ongoing regional and international efforts to renew the expired truce in the war-torn country.
Al-Alimi met in the southern port city Aden with Gabriel Vinales, the Chief of the European Union Mission to Yemen, and ambassadors of a number of EU countries, the state-run Saba news agency reported.
It said that “the meeting touched upon the latest developments in Yemen and regional and international efforts” to achieve peace in the country, Xinhua news agency reported.
Al-Alimi briefed the EU delegation on his government’s efforts regarding “re-building state institutions and improving livelihoods with the participation of all active Yemeni components”.
The EU Mission to Yemen said in a statement that the EU reiterated their strong support for al-Alimi’s commitment to peace, reforms and improving the economy during the meeting with the Yemeni leader.
Various regions in Yemen have witnessed sporadic armed confrontations between the local warring factions after a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations expired in October last year.
Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi militia stormed several northern cities and forced the Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa.
