Yemeni rebels attack aid port with missiles (government, World News)

A missile attack blamed by the government on Houthi rebels in Yemen on Saturday targeted a key port used to deliver humanitarian aid to the war-torn country.

The port of Mokha on the Red Sea in southwest Yemen is the headquarters of government forces in the region.

“Three Houthi missiles and drones targeted the port of Mokha near Bab al-Mandab,” a government military official told AFP, adding that no casualties had been reported.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait separates Yemen from Djibouti and is a key passage for international trade, trafficking and illegal migration.

Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, has been devastated by a seven-year conflict between Iranian-backed Huthis and the government backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

The southwest is vital for the import and delivery of humanitarian supplies.

The port of Mokha reopened its doors a month ago after reconstruction and renovation work, the government official said.

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Southwest Yemen has been relatively spared from such attacks since the signing in 2018 of the Stockholm agreement on the demilitarization of the strategic port of Hodeida north of Mokha.

Sporadic clashes have taken place in the region, triggering calls for calm from the United Nations which has been unable to strike similar deals elsewhere in Yemen.

Some 80 percent of Yemenis now depend on aid in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has displaced millions of people.

The UN has issued regular warnings that Yemen could experience a major famine in 2021, after raising just $ 1.7 billion of the $ 3.85 billion the country needs.

The conflict erupted in 2014 when Houthi insurgents seized the capital Sana’a, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention to support the government the following year.