AL DURAIHMI: Yemeni pro-government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, battled Huthi rebels around the key port city of Hodeida on Sunday, as a top UN envoy held crisis talks with the insurgents in the capital.
Saudi Arabia and its allies in a regional military coalition on Wednesday launched an offensive aimed at retaking the Red Sea city of Hodeida, home to the country's most valuable port which is controlled by the Iran-backed Huthis.
The United Nations has warned the offensive could spark a fresh humanitarian crisis in a country already hit by war and impending famine, sending its envoy for Yemen to the capital Sanaa in a bid to come to a solution with the rebels.
The Huthis, who accuse the UN of bias, however, said there were major obstacles to any peace talks shortly after meeting with envoy Martin Griffiths on Sunday.
The United Nations and relief organisations have warned that an all-out assault on Hodeida by the Saudi-led coalition, which commands a massive joint air force, would put hundreds of thousands of people at risk.
Nearly 4,500 households have been displaced in Hodeida province so far this month, the UN said Sunday.
Yemen's military forces have closed in on areas south and west of the port, pushing closer to an airport just south of the docks, sources in the army said.
More than 70 percent of imports to all of Yemen pass through the docks of the Hodeida port.
The army on Saturday claimed it had seized the defunct Hodeida airport, which has been in Huthi hands since 2014.
The Shiite rebels, however, denied the claim in a statement on their Saba news agency on Sunday.
They have also reported Saudi air strikes on Huthi outposts across Hodeida, with the insurgents' representative Hisham Sharaf pointing to the raids as a major obstacle to peace talks.
The highway between Hodeida and the government-held port of Mokha was cut off Friday in battles between the two warring sides, disrupting precious supply lines to the military.
The fighting is already nearing densely populated residential areas, rights groups have warned, and aid distributions have been suspended in the west of the city.
At least 139 combatants have been killed since the launch of the operation on Wednesday, according to medical and military sources, most of them rebels.