UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Yemen

The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the current situation in Yemen, the UN spokesperson's office announced on Friday.

"The president of the Security Council invites the members of the Council to informal consultations of the whole, in connection with 'Middle East (Yemen)', tomorrow, Saturday, 4 April 2015 at 11 a.m.," said a message from the UN office.

The meeting will take place behind closed doors. Jordan, one of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, is the rotating council president for April.

On March 22, the 15-nation UN body had called an emergency meeting to discuss the volatile situation in Yemen.

The Yemeni crisis has become the focus of the ongoing Arab summit led by Egypt and attended by 20 Arab monarchs and presidents, including Yemeni President Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, amid the ongoing Saudi-led military airstrikes against the targets of Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Yemen has mired in political gridlock since 2011 when mass protests forced former president Ali Abdullash Saleh to step down.

The three-year reconciliation talks failed to resolve the crisis and created huge power vacuum that could benefit extremist groups.

The Yemen crisis has killed more than 500 people over the past two weeks, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said in a statement on Thursday.

Extremely concerned for the safety of civilians caught in the midst of "fierce fighting" in Yemen, Amos, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator, called on all parties involved to meet their obligations under international law and do their utmost to protect the ordinary women, children and men who are suffering the consequences of the conflict.