(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Top US diplomat John Kerry was to hold talks with Riyadh Wednesday on a "humanitarian pause" in Saudi-led military operations in Yemen as more Saudis were killed in cross-border attacks.
Five people were killed in the Saudi border city of Najran in two shelling attacks from Yemen, a day after cross-border bombing killed three people in the same city.
Riyadh has said it is considering temporary halts in air raids to allow aid deliveries into Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition took action on March 26 in an effort to halt an advance by Iran-backed rebels.
Twenty-two humanitarian organisations warned their emergency aid operations in Yemen could grind to a halt due to fuel shortages, urging immediate opening of roads as well as ending air and sea blockades.
There has been growing concern for civilians as the conflict drags on, and on Wednesday 32 people were reported to have died while trying to flee the southern city of Aden by sea.
A health official accused the Huthi Shia rebels of killing the civilians and wounding another 67 in the shelling that hit a fishing harbour and a barge.
Before he flew to Saudi Arabia, Kerry told reporters in Djibouti he would raise the issue of a temporary halt to air strikes with officials in Riyadh.
"We will be discussing the nature of the pause and how it might be implemented," Kerry said.
"We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation that is unfolding in Yemen... For the time being the immediate crisis is the humanitarian one."
As well as international concern over the growing civilian death toll from the air campaign and fighting, deliveries of fuel, food and medicine have been severely crippled in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation.
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