Reuters, Sanaa :Rockets fired by Houthi militiamen killed 14 civilians, most of them children, as fighting intensified for control of Yemen’s third largest city, Taiz, residents said on Monday.The Saudi-led coalition opposing the Houthis also launched air raids on military bases and Houthi positions in the southwestern city during the fighting, residents said, but no casualties were reported.Fighters loyal to Yemen’s exiled government have been contesting control of Taiz-known as Yemen’s cultural capital-with the Houthis since April. Hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed.”The situation is awful and the fighting is happening on many fronts. All the hospitals have closed except for one, so there’s a shortage of medical care. Two rockets fell on the Deluxe neighbourhood, killing 14 people, among them women and children,” Taiz resident Abdul Aziz Mohammed said.The nothern-based Houthis, a Shi’ite Muslim group, took control of Yemen’s capital Sanna last September. Arab countries intervened in the conflict in March to halt a Houthi advance into the south which caused the Saudi-backed government to flee to Riyadh from its refuge in the southern port of Aden.
