30 soldiers killed in mutiny at Yemen army base

At least 30 Yemeni soldiers were killed in coalition air raids and clashes after troops attempted to defect to rebel ranks near the border with Saudi Arabia, a military source said on Wednesday.

Saudi-led coalition jets, which have bombed Yemeni rebel positions since March, intervened when "dozens of soldiers defected and announced their support" for Houthi rebels on Tuesday, prompting clashes with pro-government troops, the source said. 

The incident took place at the 23rd Mechanised Brigade, stationed near the border with Saudi Arabia and left "at least 30 soldiers killed and dozens wounded" on both sides, he said.

"Armoured vehicles and troop carriers were destroyed or damaged" in the air raids and clashes between rival units before the situation was brought under control, the source added.

Troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have joined forces with the Houthi rebels, who seized the capital almost unresisted in September before advancing southwards in the Gulf country.

In the country's main southern city of Aden, heavy fighting raged between rebels and pro-government forces, residents said.

Military sources said that the rebels fired rockets at a residential district killing eight civilians, among them three children.

Meanwhile, Yemen's government told the United Nations on Wednesday it would agree to a truce to end more than three months of fighting provided key "guarantees" were met, spokesman Rajeh Badi said.

"The Yemeni authorities have informed the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon of its agreement to implement a truce in the coming days," Badi told Reuters by phone from the government's seat of exile in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the spokesman said, had "set guarantees for the success of the truce".

Meanwhile, the rebel-controlled sabanews.net website reported that around 40 inmates escaped in a jailbreak after coalition jets bombed the area surrounding a prison in Mahawit province, northwest of the capital.

The UN says more than 3,200 people have been killed and 1.26 million displaced in Yemen since fighting broke out in March.

Yemen is running critically short of imported food and fuel as war has cut internal supply lines and a near-blockade by the Saudi-led naval forces has held up shipping to the country.

Ground combat between various Yemeni armed factions and Saudi-led air strikes have deepened the plight of civilians in Yemen, with the United Nations saying more than 80 per cent of its 25 million people need some form of emergency aid.

Before Saudi Arabia intervened in March, Yemen imported more than 90 per cent of its food, mostly by sea.

Since then, many shipping companies have pulled out. Those still willing to bring cargoes face incalculable delays and mandatory searches by coalition warships hunting for arms bound for the Houthis, the dominant warring faction.

According to a humanitarian aid assessment compiled by the US Navy, just 42 ships reached Yemen with goods in June compared with 100 in March.

Further data was not available. Before the crisis, the number of ships making calls to Yemen's major southern port of Aden alone averaged over 1,000 annually in recent years.

The 15-page report, which bears the insignia of the US Navy's Central Command and the Saudi flag, has been circulated among coalition militaries and humanitarian agencies which send in aid with the Saudi alliance's approval.

The report said imports into embattled Aden's terminals had halted almost completely, with port calls by cargo, container ships and fuel tankers down over 75 per cent between January and June versus the same period last year.

Aid agencies have called for an immediate humanitarian truce and warned that their efforts alone cannot meet Yemen's vast needs. More than half the population lacks proper food, and commercial imports of fuel, food and medicine are "severely" below pre-crisis levels, the UN agency OCHA said on Wednesday.

"Whatever we bring... is clearly not sufficient. What you need for Aden in particular and for the country as a whole is to resume commercial imports into the country. Whatever we do as humanitarian workers is only a fraction of what is actually needed," Antoine Grand, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, said on Tuesday.

"This is clearly deteriorating by the day, and that's what makes this situation so catastrophic," Grand told a UN briefing in Geneva by telephone from Sanaa.

Over 3,000 people have died in the conflict.

Nationwide fuel shortages have spread disease and suffering in arid Yemen, where access to water mostly depends on fuel-powered pumps. Aid and commercial assessments show Yemen needs to import over 500,000 tonnes of fuel every month.

The US aid report said Yemen had managed to import only 11 per cent of its monthly fuel needs in June versus 18 per cent in May, 1 per cent in April and 23 per cent in March, with the country facing a 1.8 million tonne shortfall in fuel imports.

"On average (there is) less than one hour of electricity per day," it said. "The lack of storage capacity and fuel for milling of grain into flour is discouraging traders from taking orders for more grain."

Despair reigns among residents of Aden largely pinned down by artillery battles between Houthi fighters and local militia in one of the country's deadliest and most deprived war zones.

"Nothing remains of normal life for people here because of the siege imposed by the Houthis and because food and fuel are not coming in," retiree Abu Bakr Ahmed said.

"On top of this, there's indiscriminate shelling by mortars and Katyusha rockets almost all the time. Water and electricity are cut, all while temperatures range from 40-45 degrees (104-113 degrees Fahrenheit). The state of people's lives and health here is awful."

Source: Timesofoman