Yemeni pro-government forces traded mortar fire Sunday with rebels near Hodeida airport, military sources said, on the fifth day of an offensive to seize back control of the strategic port city.
More than 70 per cent of Yemeni imports pass through the docks of Hodeida port, controlled by the country’s Houthi rebels.
The fighting between the Iran-backed rebels and a pro-government alliance, led by Saudi Arabia, has raised UN fears of humanitarian catastrophe in a country already teetering on the brink of famine.
Yemen’s military forces have closed in on areas south and west of Hodeida port, sources in the army said.
Yemen’s army on Saturday claimed it had seized the defunct Hodeida airport, held by the Shia rebels since 2014.
The Houthis, however, denied the news in a statement on their Saba news agency on Sunday.
Yemen’s Government and its allies launched the offensive on Hodeida on Wednesday. At least 139 combatants have been killed, according to medical and military sources.
The Houthi rebels drove Yemen’s out of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, pushing President Abedrabbo
Mansour Hadi into exile and sparking an intervention by Saudi Arabia and its allies the following year.