International Shia News Agency

Iran sends aid to Yemen

SHAFAQNA – As reports from Yemen have confirmed that Gulf countries have categorically closed their borders to Yemeni refugees as thousands are attempting to flee the war zone, Iran officials have announced they already sent humanitarian aid to Yemen in view of alleviating people’ suffering.

Iran has sent medical aid to Yemen, being the first such shipment since an Arab coalition initiated air-strikes against the Houthis – Zaidi faction led by Seyyed Abdel-Malek Al Houthi –

Iran’s official news agency IRNA said that the aid was delivered by air early Tuesday but did not say where the cargo landed. The aid contained 19 tons of medicines and medical equipment and two tons of food provided by the Iranian Red Crescent, IRNA reported.

Saudi Arabia which leads the Arab coalition accused Houthis of being Iran puppets and declared that the airstrikes will not stop until the Shia rebels withdraw and President of the impoverished Arab nation, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, return to power.

The coalition has bombed a number of rebel-held airports and has announced it is in full control of Yemen’s airspace. Al Jazeera reported that at least 40 people have been killed in an attack on a camp for internally displaced people in north Yemen. Sources in Yemen have put the death toll much higher.

The Qatar-based news agency cited several sources who claimed that an air strike on Monday struck the Al-Mazraq camp in the northwestern province of Hajjah, close to the Saudi border. Pablo Marco, the manager of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) programme in the Middle East said: “It was an air strike,” adding that dozens of Yemenis were injured. However, Yemen’s foreign minister, Riyadh Yasin, insisted that the killings was caused by Houthi artillery fire.

The escalation of the crisis brings Yemen closer to civil war as UN repeatedly stated, urging all sides to find a common political solution.

Despite calls for restraints from Iran and Russia, Washington has offered Saudi Arabia its full backing in Yemen, in complete violation of international law and convention.

Following an incursion into Saudi Arabia by Houthi fighters on Monday, military officials in Riyadh have warned they could soon put boots on the ground in Yemen.

The last time the Kingdom intervene in Yemen in the 1960s it lost thousands of its paid-fighters – Saudi Arabia does not have a real military, only a mercenary army –

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