IRIA News

Nine people were killed when Saudi-led coalition warplanes bombed a district in the Yemeni capital Sanaa inhabited by relatives of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, residents and medics said.

The air raid, which also wounded at least 60 people, came ahead of planned U.N.-sponsored talks in Geneva aimed at ending Yemen’s civil war that has drawn in regional powers, including the world’s top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

Residents said the warplanes had targeted vacant houses in Bait Me’yad, a district near the heart of Sanaa that is home to a number of relatives of Saleh, whose loyalists are allied with Houthi forces, the dominant armed faction in the conflict.

A wave of intensive overnight air strikes targeted arms depots around the capital and residences of people close to Saleh, including his brother’s home, south of Sanaa, witnesses said.

Saudi Arabia led coalition launched the air war on March 26, as the rebels and their allies among forces loyal to Saleh advanced on President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s refuge in the southern city of Aden.

Hadi had fled the capital, which the rebels seized unopposed in September, and was rushed to safety in Saudi Arabia as the Huthis closed in on Aden.

Clashes continued Saturday in the port city of Aden, as well as in nearby Daleh, and in the provinces of Shabwa and Abyan, where southern fighters allied with Hadi have been fighting advancing rebels.

The exiled government said its delegation flew Saturday to Geneva for the UN talks due to open on Monday.

But representatives of the Houthis and Saleh’s General People’s Congress refused to board a UN plane from Sanaa to Geneva Saturday because it was scheduled to stop off in Jizan, in Saudi Arabia, a Houthi official told AFP.

The delegations have asked not to travel to the kingdom, the official said, insisting that the rebels’ position on participating in the talks had not changed.

The talks had been scheduled to start Sunday but the United Nations said they would be delayed by a day due to “unforeseen circumstances”.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the talks were aimed at securing a ceasefire, agreeing on a withdrawal plan for the Huthis and stepping up humanitarian aid deliveries.

A five-day truce last month allowed aid agencies to reach civilians caught in the fighting but UN efforts to prolong the ceasefire failed.

The World Health Organization said Friday that 2,584 people had been killed in fighting in Yemen as of June 7, with 11,065 wounded.

UNESCO Condemns Saudi-Led Airstrike on Yemen’s Sanaa Old City

An air strike destroyed at least four historic buildings in a section of Yemen’s capital dating back to before the 11th century Friday, drawing condemnation from the United Nations’ conservation agency.

At least six people died in the early-morning raid in Sanaa, according to Yemen’s state news agency Saba. “Rescue teams and citizens are still trying to rescue people from under the rubble,” freelance journalist Zaid Elaya told NBC News at around 12:30 p.m. local time (5:30 a.m. ET).

It was the first time the Saudi-led 11-week old bombing campaign apparently hit the capital’s Old City, which has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years and is easily recognizable for its mud brick “gingerbread-style” houses.

The U.N. conservation agency UNESCO criticized the action, which it said turned a “magnificent complex of traditional houses” into ruins in the ancient and densely-populated Al Qasimi neighborhood.

#Yemen: Destruction of #WorldHeritage #Sanaa today will only worsen the humanitarian situation, says our @IrinaBokova http://t.co/Dv85jXv11Z

— UNESCO (@UNESCO) June 12, 2015

“I am profoundly distressed by the loss of human lives as well as by the damage inflicted on one of the world’s oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape,” UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said in a statement. “I am shocked by the images of these magnificent many-storied tower-houses and serene gardens reduced to rubble.”

The Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Yemen for more than two and half months, after the Shiite Houthi rebel group made a play for power in the chaos-riven country.

According to UNESCO, there are 103 mosques and over 6,000 houses in the Old City that were built before the 11th century. It is “defined by an extraordinary density of rammed earth and burnt brick towers,” the U.N. agency said.