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Yemenis rally to protest Saudi Arabia’s air campaign

Thousands of Yemenis rally in the capital, Sana'a, to condemn Saudi Arabia’s military air campaign against the crisis-hit Arab country.

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Yemenis rally in the capital, Sana’a, on August 24, 2015 to denounce Saudi Arabia’s atrocious airstrikes against the Arab country and the international community’s silence on the raids.

Thousands of people have staged a mass demonstration in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, to express their outrage at Saudi Arabia’s ongoing atrocious aerial attacks across the crisis-hit and impoverished Arab country.

On Monday, the demonstrators converged on Bab al-Yemen, which is the gateway to the Old City of Sana’a, to denounce Riyadh’s airstrikes against Yemen and praise the Yemeni nation’s resistance and steadfastness in the face of the raids, Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network reported.

The marchers chanted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” and “Death to Al Saud”, and censured the international community over its inaction and deafening silence on Saudi Arabia’s bombardment of Yemeni regions. 

The protesters also announced that they are ready to sacrifice their lives and resist till the last drop of their blood for their country.

Earlier in the day, Saudi military aircraft struck residential buildings in the Bani Sayah district of Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada, killing all six members of a family.

Saudi jets also launched three aerial attacks on Harad district in the northwestern Yemeni province of Hajjah, located approximately 130 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Sana'a. There were no immediate reports of casualties and no word on the extent of the damage inflicted.

A Yemeni man injured in a Saudi airstrike lies in bed at a hospital’s burn unit in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, August 9, 2015. (© AFP)

 

At least one civilian was also killed on Monday when Saudi warplanes hit an area in the Manbih district of Sa'ada Province.

Moreover, Yemeni army troopers backed by fighters from Popular Committees lobbed some 20 rockets at the Hathirah military base in Saudi Arabia's southwestern border province of Jizan, forcing the Saudi soldiers stationed there to flee.

On Sunday, Yemeni army soldiers together with fighters from Popular Committees seized control of two military camps in the kingdom’s Jizan region. They also managed to capture three Saudi M1 Abram tanks and destroyed an unspecified number of military vehicles.

Yemeni supporters of the Houthi Ansarullah movement raise their weapons during a rally to protest against Saudi airstrikes in the capital, Sana’a, on August 11, 2015. (© AFP)

 

Yemeni soldiers and allied forces also destroyed a number of Saudi tanks and military vehicles in the al-Khobe district of Jizan region.

There are also reports that Yemeni army and Popular Committees' forces have taken control of a hilltop in Jizan, and are making further headway.

Vendors salvage goods from under the rubble of their shops following a Saudi airstrike on the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on July 20, 2015. (© AFP)

 

Saudi Arabia launched its military aggression against Yemen on March 26 – without a UN mandate – in a bid to undermine Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to the country’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh.

Over 4,300 people have been killed in the Yemeni conflict, the World Health Organization said on August 11. Local Yemeni sources, however, say the fatality figure is much higher.