(MENAFN- The Peninsula) A Sana'a-based ICRC worker looks at emergency medical aid being unloaded at Sana'a International Airport yesterday.
Sana'a: The Red Cross yesterday delivered a second planeload of aid to war-battered Yemen in as many days.
The aid is urgently needed for hundreds wounded in fighting between pro-government forces and the Shiite Houthi rebels, who are allies of troops loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said its aircraft landed in Sana'a with medical equipment after weeks of intense fighting across the country.
"The new cargo is 35.6 tonnes, of which 32 tonnes is medical aid and the rest water purifying equipment, electric power generators and tents," ICRC spokeswoman Marie Claire Feghali said.
The Red Cross and the UN also sent planes to Sana'a on Friday, each carrying 16 tonnes of medicine and equipment, the first aid supplies to reach the capital since the air campaign began late last month.
Russia's news website Vesti.ru reported that two Russian planes were unable to land in Sana'a yesterday to evacuate hundreds of civilians after being denied coalition permission to enter Yemeni airspace.
More than two weeks of heavy bombardment against opponents of exiled President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and fighting between rival militias has prompted a UN call for a freeze in the violence.
UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klaauw, said an "immediate humanitarian pause in this conflict" was desperately needed to step up aid deliveries.
The World Health Organization says nearly 650 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded in the recent escalation in violence.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR says at least 900 people, most of them Somalis, but also including Yemenis, have arrived in the Horn of Africa in the past 10 days.
Officials in Somalia said yesterday that more than 400 Somalis, many of them women and children, had returned to their war-torn home country as security in Yemen worsens.
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