Landmine kills 5 civilians in western Yemen

By Morad al-Arifi

TAIZ, Yemen

At least five civilians were killed and many injured when a truck hit a landmine in Taiz’s Al-Taziya district Sunday, according to an official source.

"A civilian truck carrying civilians and goods hit a landmine in al-Rabii area," the spokeswoman of the national human rights committee in Yemen, Ishraq al-Maqtari told Anadolu Agency.

"The truck was traveling from Al-Hanaya area, in western Taiz province," she added.

A source, asking for anonymity due to security reasons, told Anadolu Agency that "the Houthi militia and their allied forces had planted dozens of landmines around the entrance of Taiz province in the last three days."

Yemen has been wrecked by chaos since late 2014, when the Houthis and their allies overran the capital, Sanaa, and other parts of the country.

The conflict escalated in mid-2015 when Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a major air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled Saudi-backed government.

Two rounds of UN-backed peace talks have failed to resolve the conflict in which thousands of Yemenis are believed to have been killed and an estimated 2.5 million forced to flee their homes.