Reuters reports: Saudi-led air strikes and heavy shelling between warring factions shook several cities in Yemen on Saturday, residents said, violating a United Nations humanitarian truce which took effect just before midnight.

The U.N.-brokered pause in the fighting was meant to last a week to allow aid deliveries to the country’s 21 million people who have endured more than three months of bombing and civil war.

A coalition of Arab states has been bombing the Iranian-allied Houthi rebel movement – Yemen’s dominant force – since late March in a bid to restore to power President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.

That coalition said on Saturday that the Yemeni government in exile had not asked it to pause, according to a news flash on Saudi-owned Arabiya TV. [Continue reading…]