UN assessing damage at Yemeni port city grain mills

CAIRO – 10 May 2019: The UN are assessing possible damage to grain stores it manages near the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah that were hit by gunfire on Thursday, Reuters reported on Friday.

“Any damage to humanitarian food stocks, whether deliberately targeted or as collateral damage, is unacceptable when millions in Yemen continue to suffer from crippling shortages of food,” the World Food Program’s senior spokesman Herve Verhoosel told a press briefing in Geneva.

Hodeidah, which has become the focus of a four-year war between Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi group, is the entry point for most of Yemen’s humanitarian aid and commercial imports.

Last month, Yemeni armed forces managed to foil several attacks carried out by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia on army positions in the Directorate of Al-Tahita, south of Hodeidah.

A statement by the Yemeni Ministry of Defense’s official website “September Net”, the militants targeted army positions with artillery and machine guns, however the Yemeni forces successfully foiled the attack, killing and wounded several Houthis.

The site stated that while the militia continues to carry out its violations of shelling residential and military areas, the Yemeni army were adhering to the UN truce, in accordance with the directives of the political and military leadership.