Yemeni soldier, child killed in Houthi attacks

A Yemeni government soldier and a child have reportedly been killed in two separate Houthi attacks.

Early on Wednesday, in the latest strike against government troops around the country, the Iran-backed Houthis launched an assault in the Yafaa region of Lahij province.

In the heavy fighting that followed, at least one Yemeni government soldier died, and several others were injured, before the attackers withdrew.

Over recent months, the militia group has repeatedly attacked government troops in the mountainous Yafae region from positions in neighboring Al-Bayda province.

The soldier’s death in Yafae came less than a day after an explosive-rigged drone launched by the Houthis toward a government checkpoint in the Hays district of the western Hodeidah province, killed a child.

The boy was reportedly gathering empty plastic bottles when the drone struck a nearby medical facility.

On Tuesday, another child was killed after he stepped on a land mine laid by the Houthis in Al-Souma district, Al-Bayda province.

In the southern province of Shabwa, the Shabwa Defense Forces on Tuesday shot down a Houthi drone over the Al-Aid district.

Despite the Houthi attacks, hostilities have mostly subsided on battlefields in Taiz, Marib, Dhale, and Shabwa since the Yemeni government and the Houthis agreed to a UN-brokered cease-fire in April last year.

Earlier in the week, the warring factions exchanged nearly 900 detainees in a three-day operation.

And further hopes of an end to the fighting in Yemen also gained a significant boost last week when the Saudi Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Jaber, paid a rare public visit to Houthi-controlled Sanaa to discuss a draft peace plan agreed upon by the Yemeni government with Yemeni militia.