Red Cross delivers first aid shipment to Yemen

The Red Cross said it flew an aircraft into Sanaa on Friday, delivering its first medical aid to Yemen’s capital since a Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against Shiite rebels.

“This is the first ICRC plane to have landed in Sanaa. It is loaded with 16 tonnes of medical aid,” said Marie Claire Feghali, spokeswoman in Yemen for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The shipment was made up of “drugs and surgical instruments,” the spokeswoman said via telephone from Sanaa airport after the arrival of the plane.

“Tomorrow, a second plane will be carrying 32 tonnes of medical supplies, generators and water purification equipment for hospitals in Sanaa,” she added.

On Wednesday a Red Cross boat carrying medical aid and personnel docked at Yemen’s southern city of Aden, the main battleground in the conflict between forces loyal to President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

On board was a team of five medics from Doctors Without Borders (MSF), according to the head of MSF in Yemen, Marie-Elisabeth Ingres.

Ingres said at the time that another boat traveling from Djibouti and carrying 2.5 tonnes of medical aid had reached Aden, the first aid delivered since the Saudi-led coalition launched its strikes on March 26.

The Red Cross has been appealing for an immediate truce to facilitate aid deliveries.

It has called for land, air and sea routes to be opened to allow delivery of 48 tons of medical supplies it has ready to treat up to 3,000 wounded.

On Thursday, Shiite rebels and allied troops overran the capital of an oil-rich Yemeni province in a heavily Sunni area, making significant territorial gains despite Saudi-led airstrikes, now entering their third week.

Iran, which is trying to garner international support to stop the bombing, stepped up its condemnation, with the supreme leader calling the air campaign “genocide.”

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s parliament has decided not to join the Saudi-led coalition targeting Shiite rebels in Yemen, with lawmakers adopting a resolution calling on the warring parties to resolve the conflict through peaceful dialogue.

After days of debating, Pakistani lawmakers on Friday unanimously voted in favor of a resolution saying that the parliament desires “Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis.”

The predominantly Sunni Pakistan, which has a Shiite minority of its own and shares a long border with the Shiite powerhouse Iran, has been concerned about getting involved in Yemen’s increasingly sectarian conflict and a Saudi-Iran proxy war in the region.