First U.N. aid ship docks in Yemen’s Aden

A ship carrying desperately needed relief supplies docked in Aden on Tuesday, the first U.N. vessel to reach the southern Yemeni city in four months of fighting, its governor said, according to Agence France Presse.

"This is the first boat carrying the U.N. flag to dock in Aden since the war began" in late March, governor Nayef al-Bakri told reporters at the Aden refinery port.

The ship is chartered by the World Food Programme, which has tried repeatedly to deliver aid to the port city in recent weeks but failed due to security reasons.

"This will be the first WFP chartered ship to reach the port in Aden," WFP spokeswoman Reem Nada told AFP shortly before the ship entered the harbour.

WFP is expected to be delivering around 3,000 tons of food to Aden which is enough for 180,000 people for one month.

The U.N. said that over 3,600 people have died during the almost four months of air raids and civil war in Yemen. The conflict has deepened suffering in the already impoverished nation, especially in Aden which has seen heavy combat.

Meanwhile, forces loyal to Yemen President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi made significant advances in the country’s third largest city of Taez, according to Al Arabiya news channel.

The Popular Resistance made the gains in the strategic town days after Vice President Khaled Bahah announced the liberation of the southern city of Aden.

The recapture of the busy port represent a strategic breakthrough in the conflict that has been raging in the impoverished Arabian country for months.

Also in Taez, Iranian-backed Houthi-militias have targeted residential areas in Jabal al –Jarrah mountain.

In the capital Sanaa, the Popular Resistance killed six Houthis in a shooting at a checkpoint near the central bank.

Five other Houthis were killed in a car bombing against a police station in the Al-Hassaba district in the north of the city, according to Reuters.

Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's war on March 26 in an effort to stop Houthi and pro-Saleh forces taking Aden, the last city nominally controlled by exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government, and to restore him to power in Sanaa.