Yemen: Saudi Blocks Russian Evacuation Plane, Bombs Russian Embassy - NewsRescue.com

Saudi airstrikes have damaged the Russian consulate general in the southwestern Yemeni city of Aden, an embassy source says.

“There is not a single intact window left,” Sputnik news agency quoted a Russian embassy source as saying on Wednesday.

The source added that the evacuation of Russian nationals and closure of the consulate is currently being reviewed.

Earlier, a Russian plane, sent to evacuate Russian citizens, was forced to land in the Egyptian capital Cairo after Saudi-led coalition forces denied it permission to land in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

Saudi Arabia’s air campaign in Yemen started on March 26 in a bid to restore power to fugitive former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

On March 25, the embattled president fled Aden, where he had sought to set up a rival power base, to Riyadh after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on Aden.

The Ansarullah fighters took control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in September 2014 and are currently moving southward. The revolutionaries said the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.

The Saudi air raids that entered their seventh day on Wednesday have so far claimed the lives of nearly 200 people, including 62 children.

SRK/AS/MHB