Journalist killed while covering Yemen clashes

By Murad al-Arifi

ADEN, Yemen

A Yemeni journalist was killed while covering ongoing clashes between government forces and Houthi rebels in the central Al-Bayda province on Saturday, according to a military source.

“Ahmed al-Musabi was killed while covering battles on the ground,” military spokesman Abdul Rahman al-Muradi told Anadolu Agency.

The journalist was killed after an artillery shell struck him, along a number of government forces, the spokesman said.

Al-Musabi had been previously injured as he was covering clashes in the same province.

According to the same source, al-Musabi was a spokesman for the pro-government forces and director of its media center in the southern Shabwa province.

Impoverished Yemen has remained wracked by violence since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital, Sanaa.

The conflict escalated in 2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Arab allies launched a massive air campaign in Yemen aimed at rolling back Houthi gains.

The violence has devastated Yemen’s infrastructure, including health and sanitation systems, prompting the UN to describe the situation as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times”.