Pro-government forces fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have taken the main hospital in the strategic Red Sea port city of Hodeida, government military officials said Saturday.
The May 22 Hospital lies in the east of the rebel-held city, a key aid conduit that is the target of a renewed offensive by the coalition-backed government of President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi.
On Thursday, loyalist forces backed by coalition airstrikes entered the city for the first time, pushing toward the port and using bulldozers to remove concrete roadblocks installed by the rebels.
Officials said pro-government forces took over the hospital Friday evening.
Amnesty International had Thursday accused the Houthis of "deliberate militarization" of the facility after they stationed fighters on its roof.
A medical source told AFP Wednesday that the rebels had forced staff out of the hospital and set up sniper positions.
Nearly 80 percent of Yemen's commercial imports and practically all United Nations-supervised humanitarian aid pass through Hodeida's port.
The Houthis have controlled Hodeida since 2014 when they overran the capital of Sanaa and swept through much of the rest of the country, triggering an intervention by the Arab coalition the following year and a devastating war of attrition.
The rebels have since been driven out of virtually all of the south and much of the Red Sea coast.
Nearly 10,000 Yemenis have been killed in the conflict since 2015, according to the World Health Organization. Human rights groups say the real death toll may be five times higher.
AFP
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