SANAA, Yemen (AP) – Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition bombed a food factory in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa early on Tuesday, killing 14 civilians working on an overnight shift, according to a factory official and medics.
Five women were among those killed in what effectively was the resumption of heavy bombardment by the Saudi-led alliance targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels and allied forces loyal to Yemen’s ousted president. The resumption comes after U.N. peace talks on Yemen collapsed over the weekend in Kuwait.
The airstrikes also signal the end of a fragile truce declared by the United Nations in April to pave the way for peace talks.
The conflict in Yemen pits the internationally-recognized government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his allies, backed by the Saudi-led coalition of Arab states, against Shiite rebels known as Houthis who overran and captured Sanaa in September 2014.
Since the Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes against the Houthis, the war has claimed 9,000 lives, displaced some 2.4 million people and pushed the Arab world’s already impoverished country to the verge of famine.