The WFP estimates that almost 13 million people in Yemen lack proper access to food, with 6 million, or one in five of the country’s population, in urgent need of assistance.
On July 19, in one of the deadliest attacks by pro-Houthi forces, mortar fire killed several dozen civilians in the Dar Saad district in Aden.
A bomb attack in the governor’s compound in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden on Thursday killed four people, security officials said.
The Houthis, who accused the Hadi government of marginalization, captured most of the country earlier this year, forcing Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Bakri is known for his close ties to the Islamist Al-Islah Party.
During her three-day visit, Ertharin Cousin, WFP’s executive director, travelled to the capital, Sanaa, Aden and Amran, and met with displaced families and mothers with malnourished children.
Local officials told Reuters that Houthi fighters fired mortars at Taiz’s Asifrah neighbourhood and al-Masbah, east of the city, in a bid to drive out Hadi supporters.
The shelling provoked airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, which has been targeting the Houthis since March, when Yemen’s crisis escalated amid the rebel advance and land grab.
UNICEF condemned what it called Tuesday’s “senseless bloodshed” in Amran province that it said killed 17 civilians and also injured 20 other people.
The humanitarian situation has steadily deteriorated since the fighting picked up in March, when Saudi Arabia launched a U.S.-backed coalition air campaign against Houthi forces and their allies, which control large swaths of the country, including the capital.
The dead bodies of 50 Huthi rebels and allied troops were retrieved from the city on Monday, the sources in Taez said, adding that 31 pro-government fighters were also killed.
Meanwhile, in the port city of Aden, witnesses on the Gold Mohur beach said that on Wednesday a masked group of armed men led six men in orange jumpsuits with their hands tied behind their backs on to a boat that was subsequently blown up.
As devastating as the conflict is for the lives of children right now, it will have terrifying consequences for their future, it warns.
Some of the artillery rounds hit a group of children who were playing in front of their homes, just before sunset.
“A selfless activity, turned in a moment into senseless bloodshed”, he said.
Evidence revealed a pattern of strikes against populated areas, in most of which no military target could be located nearby, it said.
The Yemeni government in Riyadh and the Saudi-led coalition should support progress made in Muscat and work with the UN envoy to secure a framework plan that provides, among other things, an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of militias from cities and a return to a political process.