A SAUDI-led airstrike has killed at least three civilians in Yemen’s Marib province, a local official said today, but a rebel news agency gave a higher death toll.

The local official, speaking from Marib east of Sanaa, said the civilians were in a vehicle in the Hreib Karameesh district when it was hit overnight by the airstrike.

The Saba news agency linked to the Shia Huthi rebels said that 10 women in a civilian convoy were hit in the strike.

According to Saba, three airstrikes hit the convoy as it was returning from a wedding party.

A Saudi-led coalition has been waging an air campaign against the Huthis since March 2015, in an attempt to shore up the internationally recognised government of Abedrabbo Mansur Hadi.

More than 8,750 people have been killed in the conflict since the intervention in the impoverished Arab Peninsula country, where more than 2,000 people have also died of cholera this year.

Humanitarian aid groups have urged all sides to show restraint, and the UN has listed Yemen as the world’s number one humanitarian crisis, with seven million people on the brink of famine.

Today, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Yemen needed around US$2.3 billion (RM9.4 billion) in aid in 2017 but that “only 61%” was met. – AFP, December 17, 2017.