RIYADH/GENEVA (Agencies) — The UN called Friday for an immediate “humanitarian pause” of at least a few hours each day in Yemen to allow desperately needed aid to enter the conflict-ravaged country.
The coalition facilitated on Friday the arrival of two planes carrying relief aid in Sanaa. The Red Cross and UN’s children agency will supervise the distribution of medical aid in the affected parts of the country .
Doctors Without Borders also managed to get a boatload of aid to Aden earlier this week.
But Johannes Van Der Klaauw, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, insisted that the aid that got through was far from enough.
He called for an “immediate humanitarian pause in this conflict.”
“We need many more of these flights coming in, many more of these boats coming in,” he said, stressing that the airspace over Sanaa needed to be cleared for “a few hours at least” each day to allow the aid to get in.
He insisted on the importance of opening “a window of opportunity” to bring aid to civilians amid fears of a mounting humanitarian crisis.
In a separate development, a car bomb detonated outside a security building used by Houthi militiamen in central Yemen on Friday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens, residents and a local official said.
The city of Bayhan in Shabwa province has witnessed heavy fighting between the Iran-allied Houthi fighters and local militiamen who have been supported by days of Saudi-led airstrikes
