Yemen Houthis bury their dead as Marib fighting rages

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SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis held navy funerals on Monday for 25 fighters killed in battles with a Saudi-led coalition, as fighting reveals no signal of abating regardless of intense worldwide diplomacy to finish the seven-year-old battle.

The funerals happened as fighting has raged within the gas-rich Marib area, whereas warplanes from the coalition have intensified their bombing of Sanaa, Marib and different areas.

The Houthis have additionally stepped up cross-border assaults on Saudi Arabia utilizing armed drones and missiles.

An honour guard carried the coffins – draped with flags, flowers and pictures of the dead – with navy music via the capital Sanaa. Relatives gathered to mourn their family members.

“We are in as of late impressed by these martyrs’ delight and dignity and say to them: ‘congratulations! You have preceded us to a paradise as huge as the heavens and earth’,” stated Ali Muhyaddin, a relative of one of many dead.

The struggle in Yemen has killed tens of hundreds and brought about what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian disaster.

U.N.-led efforts to agree a ceasefire have stalled within the battle, which is seen largely as a proxy struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis say they’re fighting a corrupt system and international invasion.

Houthi media confirmed fighters exchanging heavy artillery hearth with coalition forces in Marib on Sunday as warplanes flew overhead. All the 25 fighters buried in Sanaa had been killed in Marib, Houthi officers stated.

The Houthis have launched a year-long offensive to take Marib, which hosts Yemen’s largest fuel fields. The metropolis is the final stronghold of the internationally recognised authorities.

Marib is dwelling to three million folks, together with almost 1 million who fled different elements of Yemen after the Houthis ousted the federal government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene.

The variety of displaced folks in camps within the province has risen almost 10-fold since September, with greater than 45,000 folks fleeing their houses as Houthi forces press the offensive, the U.N. migration company IOM stated final month.

(Writing by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson)



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