Rebels deny Yemen airport taken

Military claims Saudi-led forces seized food-shipment hub

In this Feb. 12, 2018, photo, a girl walks alone on a street in al-Khoukha, Yemen. Since the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing campaign against the rebels in 2015, the U.N. estimates that some 10,000 civilians have been killed. Millions need humanitarian assistance and have been forced to flee their homes. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
In this Feb. 12, 2018, photo, a girl walks alone on a street in al-Khoukha, Yemen. Since the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing campaign against the rebels in 2015, the U.N. estimates that some 10,000 civilians have been killed. Millions need humanitarian assistance and have been forced to flee their homes. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

SANAA, Yemen -- Saudi-led forces fought to retake the international airport of Yemen's rebel-held port city of Hodeida, Yemeni officials and witnesses said Saturday, as their Shiite Houthi rebel rivals denied the coalition had seized the facility that is the starving nation's main gateway for food shipments.

With battles raging at the southern side of Hodeida International Airport, the military of Yemen's exiled government said it had seized the entire compound, and that engineers were working to clear mines from nearby areas just south of the city of some 600,000 people on the Red Sea.

"The armed forces which are supported by the Arab coalition have freed Hodeida International Airport from the Houthi militias and the engineering teams have started to clear the airport and its surroundings from mines and bombs," the military said on its official Twitter account.

Sadek Dawad, spokesman of the Republican Guards force loyal to the Saudi-led coalition, said government forces had battled their way onto the airport's grounds.

Dawad also said the southern gate of Hodeida city was captured by pro-coalition forces.

Houthi-linked civil aviation authorities, however, denied that the Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni forces had taken control of Hodeida's airport.

A statement posted Saturday on the Houthis' official news agency quoted Ahmed Taresh, the head of Hodeida airport, as adding that airstrikes destroyed the airport.

The Houthi-run Al Masirah satellite news channel aired footage it described as being from near Hodeida showing a burned-out truck, corpses of irregular fighters and a damaged United Arab Emirates armored vehicle. The Iranian-aligned fighters rifled through a military ledger from the vehicle before chanting their slogan: "Death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory to Islam!"

Yemeni officials and witnesses said forces from the UAE-backed Amaleqa brigades, supported by air cover from the Saudi-led coalition, were heading to eastern Hodeida province to attempt to cut off the main road that links it with the capital, Sanaa.

The officials said that if government forces capture the Kilo 16 Road they will trap the rebels in Hodeida and the western coast and prevent them from receiving supplies from the capital. The rebels are then expected to have no choice but to head to the northern province of Hajjah.

The Saudi-led, U.S.-backed coalition began its assault Wednesday on Hodeida, the main entry for food into a country already on the brink of famine.

United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths, meanwhile, arrived in Sanaa in an effort to broker a cease-fire.

International aid groups and the U.N. cautioned the Saudi-led coalition from launching the assault. Their fear is that a protracted fight could force a shutdown of Hodeida's port at a time when a halt in aid risks tipping millions into starvation.

The World Health Organization expressed concern on Saturday over the fighting around Hodeida, calling for unbroken aid access and protection of health workers.

In a statement Saturday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that "we stand with our U.N. partners to call on all parties to the conflict to protect the port, and allow its uninterrupted functioning. We also call on all parties to protect health workers and their facilities from harm, as well as to ensure unimpeded access for medical teams seeking to treat the wounded."

For its part, the Saudi-led coalition said it had no choice but to launch the assault as the port provided millions of dollars for the Houthis through customs controls. They also accuse the Houthis of using the port to smuggle weapons, something a U.N. panel of experts described in January as "unlikely" as incoming ships require U.N. permission and are subject to random searches.

Aid agencies and the U.N. evacuated international staff from the city ahead of the offensive. Some of the wounded able to flee are driving onto Aden, some 195 miles away, after being stabilized at a hospital in Mocha on the way, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said. The hospital in Hodeida is struggling to help the wounded, the group said.

Thousands remain besieged in the city and around the airport due to the fighting.

"Families are trapped inside and it is difficult leaving as they are coming under airstrikes and bombardment by both parties of the war," relief worker Saber Wasel said. "It was a hard night for citizens because of the intensity of the strikes and gunfire."

Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Michael and Samy Magdy of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/17/2018

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