Kerry in Riyadh as Houthis make advances

At least 21 civilians were also killed on May 1 when Arab coalition fighter jets mistook their residential bloc for a rebel Houthi compound [Xinhua]

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh Wednesday amid reports he would push the Kingdom to agree to a ‘humanitarian’ pause to the Arab coalition bombing of Yemen.

Kerry said that the US would provide $68 million to relief agencies who last week issued a call for assistance as hospitals began to run out of medicine with some towns running out of food and water.

The UN has said that 300,000 people of the 16 million Yemeni population have become internally displaced persons since Saudi Arabia began to bomb its southern neighbor citing growing insecurity since rebel Houthi militia seized the capital Sanaa.

On Wednesday, hospital sources in the port city of Aden said that at least 40 civilians trying to flee the fighting were killed when they were allegedly shelled by rebel Houthi forces.

Relief agencies say that a mass movement of refugees is likely in the weeks ahead of punishing summer heat as major urban areas run out of food, fuel and medicine.

“The situation is getting more dire by the day,” Kerry told reporters during a stop in nearby Djibouti.

Meanwhile, Houthi forces appearing unfazed by 45 days of aerial bombardment managed to fight their way into Aden’s Tawahi district – a key city and final bastion of the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Hadi fled Sanaa for Aden in March after Houthi militia overran his forces. He established a temporary government in Aden before fleeing to Saudi Arabia in early April.

The BRICS POST with inputs from Agencies