Yemenis Down Saudi-Led Reconnaissance drone in Hudaydah
An unnamed Yemeni military official said Yemeni air defense forces and their allies shot down the drone with a surface-to-air missile as it was on a reconnaissance mission over al-Faza area in the al-Tuhayta district of the province, located around 230 kilometers west of the capital Sana'a, early on Tuesday.
On March 5, an unnamed source in the Yemeni air defense forces told the media bureau of the Houthi Ansarullah movement that Yemeni forces and their allies had intercepted and targeted an unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition as it was flying in the skies over Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan.
Separately, a young Yemeni woman succumbed to injuries sustained on Tuesday when Saudi mercenaries and Saudi-sponsored Yemeni militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi launched barrages of artillery rounds at a village in the al-Tuhayta district of Yemen’s Hudaydah province.
Saudi-led military aircraft also carried out a dozen airstrikes against various areas in the Harad district of Yemen's northwestern province of Hajjah, but there were no immediate reports of possible casualties and the extent of damage caused available, Press TV reported.
Moreover, Saudi-led warplanes pounded residential neighborhoods in the Bakil al-Mir district of the same Yemeni province on three occasions. No casualties and damage were quickly reported though.
Elsewhere in the Sirwah district of the central Yemeni province of Ma'rib, Saudi-led warplanes mounted several air raids against Hilan area. However, there were no immediate reports of possible casualties and the extent of damage inflicted available.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing back to power the government of Hadi and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past nearly five years.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have purchased billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the United States, France and the United Kingdom in the war on Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition has been widely criticized for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign. The alliance has carried out nearly 20,600 air raids in Yemen, according to the data collected by the Yemen Data Project.
The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.
