Yemeni armed tribesmen loot UNICEF aids convey

A group of Yemeni armed tribesmen looted four trucks carrying UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) aids for the internally displaced people (IDP) in the northern province of Saada, which witnessed long sporadic war between the government and Houthi rebels in the past six years, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said the armed groups belonging to al-Osaimat tribe in Amran province, north of Sanaa and south of Saada, intercepted the aid convoy late Thursday in Houth district of Amran, while the convoy was en route from Sanaa to IDP's camps in Saada.

Security forces were hunting down the groups to arrest them and regain the aid worth 44,000 U.S. dollars for the IDPs in Saada, said the statement.

Yemen has witnessed sporadic battles since 2004 between government troops and the Shiite rebels, also known as Houthis, whom the government accused of seeking to re-establish the clerical rule overthrown by the 1962 Yemeni revolution that created the Yemeni republic.

On Feb. 11, the government and Shiite rebels reached a cease- fire agreement to end the conflict. However, both sides repeatedly accused each other over breaching the truce after the agreement.

On Aug. 27, the Yemeni government and northern Shiite rebels signed another agreement in the Qatari capital Doha to cement the fragile ceasefire in northern Yemen.

According to a July report by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the conflict between Houthi rebels and the government caused 342,000 IDPs in north Yemen.

The supervisor of the IDP's camps told Xinhua that there were still thousands of residents in the troubled northern provinces fleeing to camps to take shelter nowadays.

Source:Xinhua