‘Saudi-led coalition violated Yemen truce 117 times in 24 hours’

Yemem’s al-Masirah TV reported Thursday morning that Saudi-led espionage aircraft conducted 33 reconnaissance overflights in the Yemeni provinces of Ma’rib, Taiz, Sa’ada and Al Bayda in defiance of the truce.

The coalition also shelled residential areas and bases of the Popular Committees in the provinces of Ma’rib, Taiz, Sa’ada, Al Bayda, and Zale.

It also targeted several areas in the provinces of Ma’rib, Hajjah and elsewhere.

The Saudi-led coalition has on numerous occasions violated the ceasefire by launching raids on Yemen and maintaining the siege of the Sana’a Airport.

The 60-day truce came into force on April 2 and will expire on June 2.

The UN’s special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, has been holding talks with the parties to the conflict, namely the former Yemeni government backed by the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi Ansarullah movement which runs state affairs from Sana’a, to secure an extension of the ceasefire.

Sana’a has said that the only way for the Saudi-led coalition to secure an extension of the truce deal is for it to compensate for its past mistakes of violating the truce and meet the conditions set forth by the Yemeni government.

Saudi Arabia and its allies began their military campaign and siege against Yemen in 2015 to reinstall the country’s former Riyadh-allied government. They have failed to achieve that goal and remain bogged down in Yemen.