Shells struck a boat carrying people trying to flee the Yemeni city of Aden on Wednesday, killing at least 41 people and many more missing, two Yemeni officials said.
The officials — who aren’t aligned with Houthi rebels or President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi — warn the death toll from this incident could rise. It was not immediately clear who fired the shells that hit the boat or whether the vessel was targeted.
This shelling came the same day that heavy clashes erupted in Aden’s Tawahi port district, according to two Yemeni officials, one of whom also provided information on the stricken boat.
Pro-Hadi forces backed by airstrikes there battled Houthi fighters who took control of the port, those two officials said.
These incidents are the latest in Yemen’s months of violence, which exploded before Hadi’s ouster from Yemen by the Iranian-backed Houthis.
He and forces loyal to him haven’t given up though, battling the Houthis with the help of Saudi Arabian-led airstrikes. The Saudis say they want to restore what they call Yemen’s “legitimate” government led by Hadi.
All this fighting has exacerbated the difficult humanitarian situation, spurring hundreds of civilians to flee the southern Yemeni city of Aden and others around the nation.
The United Nations estimates that about 300,000 people have been displaced within in Yemen since March, with 12 million in need of food.
Earlier this week, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Johannes Van Der Klaauw issued a statement saying that the violence — including airstrikes targeting the runways at the international airport in the capital of Sanaa — have hampered efforts to deliver aid.
“Without access to the airports, aid agencies are unable to bring in staff, vital supplies of medicines and other critical life-saving assistance, or undertake medical evacuations of their personnel,” Van Der Klaauw said. “Emergency relief and medical teams from abroad are likewise unable to fly in to scale up the humanitarian operation to address the needs of increasingly vulnerable Yemenis.”