Alwaght- Yemeni air defense forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, fired missiles and downed a F-16 warplane belonging to the Saudi Air Force.
According to the Yemeni news agency Saba, the warplane was targeted with a surface-to-air missile as it was flying in the skies over the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on Thursday.
The jet had purportedly taken part in airstrikes against residential neighborhoods in Yemen. Military sources in Yemen say the operation was ‘documented’ but could not confirm where the warplane went down after being hit by the missiles.
Meanwhile, Saudi warplanes on Thursday bombarded a commercial district in the Ghamar area of Razih district in Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa'ada, leaving at least three civilians dead and destroying several buildings.
Saudi military aircraft also carried out two strikes against the city of Sirwah, which lies about 120 kilometers east of the capital, but no immediate reports of casualties were available.
The Saudi regime has intensified bombardments on Yemeni civilians during the holy month of Ramadan, ignoring calls to halt brutal aggression during this sacred month.
Cholera cases surpass 100,000
Meanwhile, the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has risen to more than 100,000 since an outbreak began on April 27, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
The rapid spread of the disease through 19 of Yemen's 23 governorates highlighted a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen after two and a half years of a brutal Saudi-led that has disabled most health care facilities in the impoverished state, according to the U.N. humanitarian office.
"To date, 101,820 suspected cholera cases and 789 deaths have been reported in 19 governorates," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.
The WHO has warned that the number of cases could hit 300,000, but the daily number of new ones declined slightly in the week to June 5 to 3,432, compared with 3,651 in the previous seven-day period.
"Yemen is in the grip of a severe cholera epidemic of an unprecedented scale," the U.N. humanitarian office said in a report published on Wednesday.
"Malnourished children and women, people living with other chronic health conditions and households that do not have enough to eat are now at greater risk of death as they face the 'triple threat' of conflict, famine and cholera," it said.
Saudi Arabia launched its deadly campaign against Yemen in March 2015 to push back Ansarullah fighters from Sana’a and to bring back to power Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's president who has resigned and is a staunch ally of Riyadh.
The brutal aggression has so far claimed the lives of nearly 13,000 Yemenis mostly civilians including women and children.
The Saudi military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories.
