Humanitarian group decries 'unacceptable' killing of Yemen civilians by Saudi-led coalition

A humanitarian group says that attacks on Yemeni civilians are "unacceptable" but have taken on a chillingly regular frequency, a day after an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels killed some 17 people in the port city of Hodeida.

Yemeni Houthi officials said on Saturday that the airstrike in the Jebel Ras area also wounded 20 people when it hit near a minibus.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs called the incident "horrific".

In a statement on Sunday, the Norwegian Refugee Council said "attacks that kill and maim civilians are no longer an anomaly in Yemen's war."

Hodeida, with its key port installations that bring in UN and other humanitarian aid, has become the centre of Yemen's conflict, with ground troops allied to the coalition struggling to drive out the rebels controlling it.

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government after the Houthi rebels ousted it from the capital Sanaa and swathes of the country's north. 

The coalition has used air power to oust the rebels from much of the country's south, but the Houthis have held onto Sanaa and the key Red Sea port of Hodeida.

Following the collapse of United Nations-backed talks in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida city and its Red Sea port.

The fighting has since eased and the coalition has focused its raids on the city limits and other parts of the surrounding province.

The coalition has drawn heavy UN criticism for the high civilian death toll from its campaign in Yemen.

Yemen's war has left almost 13,000 people dead, mostly civilians, since the coalition intervened in 2015, and sparked what the UN has labelled the world's worst humanitarian crisis.