Yemen

20 Feb 2022; MEMO: A woman has kidnapped her former husband in Yemen earlier this month, in a rare incident of its kind in the war-torn country, according to local reports.

The man, identified as Mubarak Sultan was seized by his ex-wife Taghreed Al-Sharabi with the help of her brothers on 7 February in the south-western province of Taiz.

ADEN, Feb 20 (NNN-YPA) – Yemen’s Houthi group, launched an explosive-laden drone against a school in the country’s northern oil-rich province of Marib yesterday, a government official said.

“Several students were critically injured, when a Houthi explosive-laden drone struck their school, in the government-controlled province of Marib,” the local government source said.

He clarified that the Houthi drone hit the primary school of Harib district in Marib, while the students were leaving their classes.

ADEN, Feb 13 (NNN-YPA) – A United Nations official confirmed yesterday that, five UN staff members were kidnapped in Yemen’s turbulent southern province of Abyan.

Russell Geekie, the Senior Communications Advisor to the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, said, “The UN staff members were on the way back to Aden, after having completed a field mission.”

“The United Nations is in close contact with the authorities to secure their release,” he said.

ADEN, Feb 10 (NNN-YPA) – A total of 36 Yemeni people were killed by explosives, during the first month of 2022, across the war-torn Arab country, a government official, said.

“Unexploded ordnance and landmines, including Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), killed 36 people and maimed more than 37 others in Jan,” the local government source said.

He clarified that, most of the incidents occurred in the turbulent Yemeni provinces of Shabwa, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib, that witnessed ferocious fighting.

HAJJAH, Yemen, Feb 5 (NNN-YPA) – Yemeni government army, yesterday advanced into the northern district of Harad, near the Saudi Arabian border, recapturing a military camp, a village, and a series of strategic border mountains from the Houthi militia.

“The operation began at dawn, with heavy support from warplanes of the Saudi-led Arab coalition backing the Yemeni government forces,” a Yemeni military source, on the front line, in Harad in the north-western province of Hajjah, said.

30 Jan 2022; MEMO: Canada's Calvalley Petroleum has suspended its operations and exploration in Yemen's Hadramout province due to deteriorating security conditions after having resumed activities in the war-torn country in mid-2019, the company said, Reuters reports.

It confirmed a Jan. 17 notice to staff and contractors, seen by Reuters, announcing suspension of activities in block 9, citing production and transportation disruption since Dec. 14 from checkpoints outside the company's gate and road blocks.

30 Jan 2022; MEMO: The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said on Sunday it documented cases where Yemeni families are forced to eat leaves because of hunger in their war-torn country.

The WFP said hunger in Yemen is rising amid the Arab country's "conflict and economic decline."

"Families in some of the worst-hit areas of Yemen, like Hajjah [northwest Yemen], are resorting to desperate measures like eating leaves to survive," the WFP said in a statement on Twitter, with a photo of a Yemeni civilian cooking leaves.

SANAA, Jan 30 (NNN-YPA) – Houthi militia said, it launched a ballistic missile at Yemeni government army, in the south-eastern province of Shabwa, yesterday, killing and injuring at least 40 soldiers.

The missile targeted the gathering of the soldiers in the Usaylan district in northern Shabwa, Houthi military spokesman, Yehya Sarea, said.

There was no comment yet from the government over the Houthi attack.

SANAA, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Most of Yemen faced a third day without internet on Sunday after air strikes on the Red Sea city of Hodeidah, the main landing point for the country's undersea web connection, damaged its telecoms infrastructure.

In the capital Sanaa, Majid Abdullah said he was unable to receive money from relatives in Saudi Arabia at an exchange office as a result of the ongoing outage. 

Seven years of conflict have divided Yemen between an internationally-recognised government based in the southern city of Aden, and the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Sanaa.

21 Jan 2022; MEMO: At least 70 people died and 138 others were wounded in an airstrike on a prison in northern Yemen, Doctors without Borders (MSF) said on Friday and reported by Anadolu News Agency.

"Last night, Sa'ada City Remand Prison was hit by what was reported to be an air strike from the Saudi-led Coalition. Al-Gumhourriyeh Hospital in the city has received 138 wounded and 70 dead. They are so overwhelmed that they can't take any more patients," MSF said on Twitter.