'Innocent Yemenis dying' UN says, amid escalating violence

"Four civilians were killed and 28 others were wounded, including women and children, in separate attacks in Hodeida since the end of September," the UN said in a statement on Saturday.

Four civilians were killed and 26 others injured in artillery shelling in Taiz since the beginning of October, the same statement added.

"Innocent Yemenis are still dying and suffering because of this terrible war," the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Lisa Grande said.

"There are political options on the table to end the fighting and move to political dialogue, especially with the approaching famine and depletion of funding," she added.

The statement came after a joyous weekend in Yemen, which saw the release of more than 1,000 detainees in a prisoner exchange between the warring factions.

The prisoner swap is a rare sign of progress in efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, where rebels still control the capital Sanaa and much of the north despite the intervention of a Saudi-led coalition in support of the internationally recognised government.

Under the exchange agreement hammered out in a week of negotiations in Switzerland last month, the warring sides agreed to release a total of 1,081 prisoners over the two days.

The two sides have since undertaken sporadic prisoner exchanges, but this week's swap is the first large-scale handover since the war began.

The Yemen conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, most of them civilians, and sparked what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

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