Cross-border shelling from Yemen kills 2 in Saudi

Shelling from Yemen has killed two people in a Saudi town, the civil defence agency said, in a rare breach of a calm in the border area agreed with Iran-backed rebels early last month.

"Shelling from Yemeni territory on Samtah left two people dead and wounded a child," the agency said on Twitter late on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition that has been bombing the Huthi Shiite rebels for more than a year, in support of Yemen's internationally recognised President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Monday that a rebel delegation was holding talks in Riyadh, ahead of a planned UN-brokered ceasefire next weekend which is to be followed by peace negotiations in Kuwait on April 18.

The Saudi-led coalition announced on March 9 that after negotiations though tribal mediators, it had agreed to an exchange of prisoners and a "state of calm" along the border to enable the delivery of desperately needed aid.

Dozens of people have been killed on the Saudi side of the border since the coalition launched its intervention in March last year after the rebels and their allies overran much of the country, prompting Hadi to flee into exile.

In Yemen, around 6,300 people have been killed, more than half of them civilians, most of whom have died in coalition air strikes, according to the United Nations.

Source: AFP