Rebel shelling kills four children in Taez

ADEN: Rebel shelling of a residential neighbourhood of Yemen’s third-largest city Taez killed four boys aged between seven and 15, a local official said on Tuesday.

The city is largely in the hands of the Saudi-backed government but has been a key battlefield in the conflict that has gripped Yemen since March 2015 as the rebels hold much of the surrounding countryside.

Monday evening’s shelling hit the residential neighbourhood of Al-Jamaliya, one of the oldest in the city, the official said. It followed a similar bombardment on Friday which killed three children, two of whom were playing football at the time.

Those deaths drew condemnation from the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch.

"What happened on Friday is yet another stark reminder of the immense suffering that civilians across Yemen are enduring in their daily lives," said ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East Robert Mardini. Human Rights Watch regretted the fact that the UN Human Rights Council had so far failed to agree on setting up an international inquiry into allegations of abuses by both the rebels and by the government and its backers in a Saudi-led coalition. Coalition air strikes on rebel-held areas have also exacted a heavy death toll among children, with at least four children among 12 civilians killed in a strike on Saturday.