Rivals keep fighting in Yemen's Aden, bystander killed
  • WORLD

  • 06:29 09 August 2019

Rivals keep fighting in Yemen's Aden, bystander killed

That followed three deaths and nine injuries when gunfire erupted between the rivals on Wednesday, complicating efforts to end a more than four-year war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen towards famine, APA reports quoting Reuters.

The separatists are nominally allied with President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in a Saudi-backed coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthis. But they have rival agendas for Yemen and the separatists accused a Hadi-allied party of complicity in an attack last week on their soldiers.

After Wednesday’s funeral for some of the troops killed in that missile strike on a parade, separatist supporters fought with guards near the hilltop presidential palace in the Crater district of the southern port city, witnesses said.

Thursday’s fatality came when fighting flared again and a stray bullet hit a man walking in the street, witnesses and his relatives said. Sounds of gunfire and heavy weaponry echoed into the evening while smoke and fire could be seen rising.

With Hadi in Saudi Arabia, the palace is largely empty.

The two days of violence in Aden come after coalition member the United Arab Emirates, which has armed and trained southern separatist groups, said in late June it had begun to withdraw forces from Yemen.

Two Yemeni officials told Reuters that Saudi troop and vehicle reinforcements arrived in Aden on Thursday, continuing a build up of Saudi forces in areas vacated by the UAE.

Faig Mahmudov

Tags:

RELATED NEWS