Yemeni forces again wrest Hudaydah airport from Houthis rebels

Sana'a, June 19 (IANS/WAM) Yemeni forces backed by a Saudi-led air force coalition on Tuesday recaptured an airport that has exchanged hands several times in a violent battle to wrest control of port-city of Hudaydah from Houthi insurgents, military officials said.

Abuzaraa al-Mahrabi, a commander for the Army loyal to the internationally-backed Yemeni government said that Houthi insurgents had relinquished control of the airport and fled north back into Hudaydah city.

The strategic city is located on the Red Sea coast with its port as one of the main entry points for essential supplies to the country, which is suffering the most pressing humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the UN.

Its conquest was seen by government forces as crucial in the wider objective of ending the insurgency. The Houthis were earlier pushed out of the airport on June 16 but managed to retake the complex the following day.

The Yemeni ground force, loyal to the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was joined by militiamen from Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and received aerial support from the Saudi-led Arab Air Force coalition.

The battle for Hudaydah was the Saudi-led coalition's largest military operation since it intervened in the Yemeni conflict in 2015.

The Houthis, a majority Shia armed group allied to Iran, seized power in the capital Sana'a and eastern regions of the country between 2014-15, forcing the Hadi government into exile, from where it requested armed support from its Sunni neighbour Saudi Arabia.

The ensuing civil war plunged the nation into a humanitarian crisis. According to the UN, which has limited access to Yemen, hundreds of thousands of people have fled fighting and as many as 8 million people were on the brink of starvation.

The UN has warned that some 600,000 civilians in the settlement could be affected by the battle.

--IANS/WAM

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