Yemenis have once again taken to the streets of the capital Sana’a in protest against the deadly Saudi campaign against their country, a day after scores of people lost their lives in airstrikes on the western province of Hudaydah.
Protesters on Friday condemned airstrikes conducted by the so-called coalition led by the regime in Riyadh that hit a hospital and a fishing harbor in Hudaydah on Thursday and left at least 55 people killed and 130 others wounded.
They also denounced the abduction of a group of women by mercenaries supported by Saudi Arabia in Tahita district in the port city on July 29.
During the protest, the president of the Houthi Revolutionary Committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said the Yemeni army and popular committees were able to hit targets of all the member countries of the Saudi-led coalition, even if they were underground.
Saudi Arabia and some 20 of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The offensive initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen.
The imposed war, however, has so far failed to achieve its goal thanks to firm resistance mounted by Yemeni troops and Houthi fighters in defense of the country.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and the accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.
Humanitarian organizations have warned that the Hudaydah operation threatens to cut off essential supplies to millions of Yemeni people. More than 70 percent of Yemen's imports pass through Hudaydah's docks.
The coalition claims the Houthis are using Hudaydah for weapons delivery, an allegation rejected by Ansarullah fighters.
'Major wave' of cholera
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday warned that Yemen was likely to be struck by another “major wave” of cholera cases after the airstrikes on Hudaydah struck water facilities and medical infrastructure.
