Yemeni Forces Tell Foreign Firms to Leave UAE As Conflict Spreads

SANAA- Houthi militia dominated military Saturday called on foreign companies to pull out of the UAE following a series of Saudi airstrikes on Thursday and early Friday which have killed at least 90 people in Yemen.

Yemen’s al-Masirah TV said five people were pulled out from the rubble on Saturday, raising the death toll from the Saudi-led coalition bombing of a temporary detention center in Sa’ada to 87 people.

Another 266 people were injured, most of them in critical condition, it cited Yemen’s Minister of Public Health and Population Taha al-Mutawakil as saying.

Late Thursday, Saudi-led coalition warplanes also struck a communications center in Hudaydah, killing six children playing soccer nearby and plunging Yemen offline as the war-torn nation lost its connection to the internet.

A Saudi military spokesman denied deliberately targeting the detention center, raising questions as to whether the UAE had carried out the deadly bombing.

“In the aftermath of the crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition of aggression against Yemeni people, we advise foreign companies in the Emirates to leave because they have invested in an unsafe country,” Yemen’s Armed Forces spokesman Yahya Saree tweeted on Friday.

“The UAE would grow more insecure as long as its rulers continue their military aggression against Yemen.”

His fresh warning came after Yemeni forces carried out retaliatory drone and missile strikes against strategic facilities deep inside the UAE on Monday.

On Friday, thousands of Yemenis staged demonstrations in the capital Sana’a and other cities to condemn the bombings of Sa’ada and Hudaydah.

Earlier, the Information Minister of the Ansarralh government Dhaifullah al-Shami warned of “volcanoes of rage” in response to the new atrocities.

“The enemy was seeking to perpetrate today’s crimes [against Sa’ada and Hudaydah] in silence and far from public opinion. Nationwide internet blackout in Yemen is a scheme by the Saudi-led coalition to conceal its crimes. Whatever took place in Syria several years ago is now happening in our country,” he told Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen TV.