Yemenis rally in Sana’a on 2nd anniversary of Saudi war

Thousands of Yemenis have poured out into the streets of the capital Sana’a to mark the second anniversary of the brutal Saudi war, which has left a massive trail of death and devastation across the impoverished Arab state.
On Sunday, the demonstrators converged on al-Sabin Square in Sana’a, waving national flags and chanting slogans against the Saudi military offensive and two-year bloodshed.
Senior Yemeni officials also participated in the demonstration.
Speaking at the event, Saleh al-Samad, the president of the Supreme Political Council, praised the nation’s firm resistance in the face of the Saudi aggression and said the Riyadh regime failed to bring Yemen to its knees despite all the money and resources at its disposal.
The official further held Saudi Arabia and its partners responsible for the collapse of the conflict resolution talks between Yemeni warring sides, saying the US and Israel are also in cahoots with the Riyadh regime in its war on Yemen.

“Yemen’s resistance, however, proved to be more powerful than any weapon in the world,” Samad said.

On the eve of the war’s second anniversary, Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, also addressed the nation, saying the kingdom’s almost daily airstrikes against civilians are nothing short of war crimes.

Yemenis hold a mass rally in Sana'a to protest the Saudi aggression, March 26, 2017.

On March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia, backed by a number of African and Persian Gulf Arab states, began launching airstrikes on different areas across Yemen, its southern neighbor, in an attempt to reinstall the former Yemeni government, which was a close Riydah ally.
The campaign, which also involves ground operations and a naval blockade, has so far left over 12,000 civilians dead, pushing the Arab world’s poorest country to the verge of famine.
Indiscriminate Saudi bombardments have taken a heavy toll on Yemeni infrastructure, schools and hospitals, with prominent rights groups censuring Riyadh’s military for the use of internationally-banned weapons against Yemeni civilians.
As the war enters its third year, Saudi Arabia has failed to fulfill its declared goals of war and seems without an exit strategy.
The Saudi intervention in the conflict came months after Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement took state matters in its hands after the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, stepped down and fled to Riyadh.
The former president is now based in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, but spends most of his time in the Saudi capital.
Several rounds of peace talks between Ansarullah and the Saudi-sponsored party, loyal to Hadi, have failed to yield results amid deep divisions.
Ansarullah fighters, backed by army forces and popular forces, are currently defending the nation against the Saudi offensive.
The chaos in Yemen, fueled by the Saudi campaign, has given the Takfiri al-Qaeda and Daesh terror groups room to operate in the country, further complicating the situation on the ground there.