ADEN // At least 45 civilians were killed in heavy shelling by Houthi rebels in Aden on Sunday.
More than 100 were wounded in the Dar Saad neighbourhood in the north of the port city, which was reclaimed by pro-government forces on Friday after months of heavy fighting.
Ambulances rushed to various areas in the town, taking the wounded to hospitals, including some operated by Doctors Without Borders. Private cars were also used because the ambulances could not cope
Hassan Boucenine, the head of Doctors Without Borders in Yemen, said his medical facilities had received 50 wounded people and 25 corpses.
“There will be more,” he said.
Hundreds of residents fled the shelling, which was particularly heavy in the Sharqiya area.
“Balls of fire are falling over our heads amid screams of children and women,” said Anis Othman, a resident of the Sharqiya. “Why all that shelling? There are no weapons or fighters here. They want to terrorise us and drive us out. This is only rancour and hate.”
Abdu Mohammed Madrabi, 65, was in line outside the post office to collection his pension when the shells hit, wounding him in the neck, back and leg.
“We are now sitting on the floor of the hospital” waiting for treatment, he said.
Some residents said the shelling since early dawn kept them hiding at home.
“It’s been one shell after the other since the morning. We are feeling the house is going to collapse over our head,” said Arwa Mohammed, a resident of Sharqiya, who was locked up in one room with her seven-member family for safety.
She said residents of shack burning nearby had fled only minutes before a shell struck.
Houthi rebels and allied renegade forces from the military had vowed to retaliate after fighters loyal to president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi, backed by Saudi-led coalition air strikes, pushed them out of Aden’s airport and two major neighbourhoods last week.
On Sunday, fighters from the pro-Hadi Popular Resistance advanced towards the rebel-held district of Al Tawahi.
Since late on Saturday, around 15 coalition air strikes targeted rebel positions in Al Tawahi and on the northern outskirts of the city where the rebels had brought in reinforcements.
There was also fighting in the Crater district where some rebels remain holed up, according to pro-Hadi fighters.
Nine rebels were killed in a raid on Khormaksar neighbourhood, witnesses said.
Mr Hadi had taken refuge in Aden’s presidential residence in Al Tawahi, after escaping house arrest under the rebels in Sanaa in February, before then being forced to flee for Saudi Arabia with his government.
Seeking to restore Mr Hadi’s government, the Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign in March against the Houthis and the renegade troops, who are loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Mr Hadi’s interior and transportation ministers, who returned to Aden on Friday night after the city was declared liberated from the rebels, took part in a meeting on Saturday aimed at securing the city.
The government-run news agency said the meeting looked into reopening the airport and the port to allow the flow of much-needed aid, as well as the restoration of electricity and water services.
Loyalist forces took the airport shortly after a Tuesday assault dubbed Operation Golden Arrow began.
With the rebels pushed back, some displaced residents have returned to assess the damage to their houses and neighbourhoods.
“There is no life! No hospitals, no electricity, nor water. If it was not for the two wells of the neighbourhood, people would have died of thirst,” said Crater resident Moatez Al Mayssuri.
The rebels, meanwhile, also targeted Saudi Arabian positions across the northern border in Najran and Jizan, according to the rebel-controlled Saba news agency.
Elsewhere, firefighters managed to extinguish a huge blaze at a gas depot south-west of Taez in central Yemen after it was shelled by rebels.
The United Nations has declared Yemen a level-3 humanitarian emergency, the highest on its scale.
After weeks of shuttle diplomacy between the two sides, it announced a humanitarian truce last weekend to allow the delivery of desperately needed relief supplies, but the ceasefire failed to take hold.
More than 21.1 million people — over 80 per cent of Yemen’s population — need aid, with 13 million facing food shortages.
More than 3,200 people have been killed in the fighting — many of them civilians, the UN says.
* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse