Iran’s foreign ministry said Tuesday the government had sent aid to Yemen but denied shipping weapons to the country where a Saudi-led coalition is conducting airstrikes to try to stop Iranian-backed rebels.
The state-run IRNA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham as saying allegations of arms shipments to the Houthis were “complete fabrications.” Afkham said non-military flights had carried in the aid and medicine.
Coalition warplanes continued bombing the capital, Sana’a, including hitting a weapons storage area Monday and setting off huge explosions at the site.
Another airstrike earlier Monday killed at least 45 people and wounded another 65 near a refugee camp in northern Yemen.
Humanitarian workers said the bombing had targeted a nearby military installation in the northern district of Haradh, but the circumstances involved in the attack were not clear.
Since last Thursday, a Saudi-led coalition has conducted an aerial bombardment throughout the country against Yemen’s Houthi Shi’ite rebels, but Yemeni Foreign Minister Riyadh Yaseen blamed a Houthi artillery strike for the refugee camp casualties.
A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration said it was not immediately clear how many of those killed were civilians or armed personnel.
After seizing the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, last year, the Houthis have advanced toward the southern port city of Aden, the economic center of the impoverished nation. The insurgents shelled Aden with artillery Monday as they pushed into the northeastern outskirts of the city, while Saudi fighter jets continued to pound rebel positions. Officials said the Houthis and supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh battled local militias.
The country’s current president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, had declared Aden the provisional capital before he fled the country for Riyadh last week. About 100 people have been killed in the fighting in Aden in the last several days and Hadi’s aides said he has no immediate plans to return there.
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