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Russia urges UN mandated pause in Yemen air strikes

But Saudi Arabia’s army and naval special forces have carried out specific operations, a Saudi adviser said, without revealing if they had actually set foot on the ground.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, whose country is participating in the coalition, said securing the Bab al Mandab access to the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast is a top priority.

And the Saudi adviser said special forces were also involved in operations against Huthi units on Myun Island in the strait, through which much of the world’s maritime trade passes.

– Drug stocks exhausted –

Medics called on international organisations and Arab states participating in the coalition to provide emergency medical assistance to hospitals in Aden.

“Medicine stocks are exhausted and hospitals can no longer cope with the increasing number of victims,” Lassouar said.

Yemen, an impoverished state on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the scene of the latest proxy struggle playing out between Middle East powers, after Syria and Iraq.

Iran has accused Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia of sowing instability in the region.

But it has rejected as “utter lies” accusations that it armed the rebels, who have allied with army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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The Red Cross said hospitals in Aden were overwhelmed by the casualties and fighting was making it nearly impossible for aid workers to move around.

Two brothers working for the Yemen Red Crescent Society were shot dead Friday in the southern city while evacuating the wounded, it said.

“In Yemen, we are seeing Red Crescent volunteers being deliberately killed as they strive to save others. This is the third senseless death in a single week. This is a very worrying trend and a tragic loss,” said Robert Mardini of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Meanwhile on Saturday Algeria evacuated 160 of its citizens along with 40 Tunisians, 15 Mauritians, eight Libyans, three Moroccans and a Palestinian from Sanaa on a flight to Cairo, Algerian national news agency APS reported.

The military coalition said China, Djibouti, Egypt and Sudan, along with two aid groups, were also scheduled to carry out evacuations from Sunday while requests from others including Canada, Germany and Iraq were being processed.

The turmoil has allowed Al Qaeda to expand its foothold in the southeast of the deeply tribal country, which had been a key US ally in the war on the extremist network.

On Friday, Al Qaeda fighters captured the regional army headquarters in Mukalla, capital of the southeastern province of Hadramawt.

They now control nearly all of the city, where they stormed a jail and freed 300 inmates on Thursday.

In the southern town of Daleh, the rebels broke into a jail and freed more than 500 prisoners, according to a military source, who voiced fears of “widespread anarchy” engulfing the country.

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