Local Editor

Nearly 100 people were killed in Saudi-led air strikes across Yemen on Monday, state news agency reported, with the warplanes committing a new massacre as they hit a popular market in the country.

Saba news agency said that 54 people had been killed in a series of Saudi-led raids in the Amran province, north of the capital Sanaa, including 40 who had been shopping at a market in an area called Lower Joub in the Eyal Yazeed district.

It said a number of women and children were among the dead.

The Associated Press [AP] reported that the death toll was at least 45, with more than 50 wounded, noting that the raid took place while civilians were trading in the market.

Saba said that Saudi-led war planes had also killed more than 40 people in a raid on a livestock market in the town of al-Foyoush in southern Yemen.

Local residents also reported 30 deaths in a raid on the main road between Aden and Lahj. 

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition meanwhile could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Saudi attacks continued a day after the United Nations [UN] special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, held talks with officials from the Ansarullah movement to try to broker a ceasefire in the impoverished country and to allow aid supplies to be delivered. 

A Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States, has been carrying out deadly airstrikes against Yemen