Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi

The Saudi-led coalition engaged in Yemen on April 27 urged a main separatist group that declared self-rule in the south to rescind its move, saying it was an "escalatory action" at a time all parties should focus on confronting the novel coronavirus.

Turkey on Jan. 19 condemned the attack of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels that claimed 79 lives people in Marib, western Yemen.

"We condemn the attack mounted by Houthi groups on a government-held military camp in Yemen which caused the death of 70 people and injured a large number of people," said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement.

By the end of 2015 the BND, the German foreign intelligence service, had grown so concerned that it warned the government about Saudi Arabia's new Deputy Crown Prince and defense minister, 30-year-old Muhammad bin Salman. "The previous cautious diplomatic stance of older leading members of the royal family," it wrote, "is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention."

The United Nations' humanitarian aid official in Yemen said Jan. 16 that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded.

Yemen's warring factions held their first direct talks in a U.N.-backed peace process on April 22 and will meet again despite failing to agree on an agenda, participants said.

The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said the meetings in Kuwait had been constructive and the positive atmosphere was a step forward in efforts to end the conflict.

Talks aimed at ending Yemen's war opened in Kuwait on April 21, with Kuwait's top diplomat appealing to both sides to "turn war into peace" after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis.

A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed a Yemeni judge and seven members of his family in the capital Sanaa on Jan. 24, residents said, as an aid convoy delivered food to a besieged southern city for the first time in months.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Iran-allied Houthis, who control the capital, since March.