AL-MUKALLA: An explosion on Saturday afternoon at a gas station in Bayda, a town controlled by the Houthi militia, left at least two dead and more than 90 injured, according to a medical official.
A video that circulated on social media showed a large fireball bursting out of the gas station, as distraught drivers and pedestrians fled.
An official in the medical sector, who has remained anonymous, not authorized to provide information to journalists, declares that “about 20 seriously injured people have been taken to hospitals in Sana’a”.
The Houthi militia media did not discuss the causes of the explosion. The official, however, clarified that the gas station was built recently and is part of a black market in fuel and gas, which has developed in recent years in areas controlled by the Houthis.
“Petrol and oil stations have spread arbitrarily in the Bayda region,” said the official.
Yemeni activists and journalists have expressed dismay, on social media, at the images of the explosion.
“It is the explosion of the port of Beirut, in miniature”, comments on Sunday on Twitter Sami Noman, Yemeni journalist from the city of Taiz, in the south of the country, referring to the huge explosions that rocked the Lebanese capital in August latest.
In neighboring Ibb province, a family of four was killed on Saturday when an explosion destroyed their small home, local media and residents said.
The Al-Sharyae daily reports that a grenade exploded in the pocket of a Houthi terrorist, killing him, his sister and two children in the Thi Al-Sefal district in Ibb.
On Saturday night, the Red Sea town of Hodeidah was the scene of heavy fighting between Yemeni government forces and Iranian-backed Houthis as the United Nations warned of attacks targeting civilians.
State media claim that the Joint Forces, a term for the three main military units on the country’s west coast, killed several members of the Houthi militia – including a field official called Abu Ibrahim Al-Dailami – and killed several members of the Houthi militia. injured several others, after having prevented them from entering the Kilo 16 area in Hodeida province.
In recent months, fighting and sporadic bombardments have claimed dozens of civilian casualties and among combatants on both sides, despite pledges made by warring factions to adhere to the Stockholm Accord.
According to the United Nations, the surge in fighting in Durihimi and Hays regions since mid-January has displaced more than 100 families and destroyed farms and homes.
The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Auke Lootsma, said in a statement that “the conflict continues to plunge millions of people into poverty. There is an urgent need to end hostilities in order to allow humanitarian workers to assess the needs of the population and to provide medical support to wounded civilians as well as material assistance to those who have been displaced and who have lost their means of survival. subsistence ”.
This text is the translation of an article published on rabnews.com
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