UN mulls humanitarian pauses in Yemen air campaign

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council will meet Saturday to discuss a Russian proposal for humanitarian pauses in the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen, diplomats said.

Russia called for the meeting of the 15-member council amid growing alarm over the rising civilian death toll from the fighting in Yemen.

UN aid chief Valerie Amos said Thursday she was "extremely concerned" about the fate of civilians trapped in fierce fighting after aid agencies reported that 519 people had been killed and nearly 1,700 injured in two weeks.

The UN children's agency (UNICEF) this week said at least 62 children had been killed and 30 injured over the past week in Yemen, and that more of them were being recruited as child soldiers.

UNICEF's representative for Yemen, Julien Harneis, told Al Jazeera that "children are in desperate need of protection, and all parties to the conflict should do all in their power to keep children safe”.

Alexey Zaytsev, spokesman for the Russian mission at the UN, said the closed-door consultations would be about "possible humanitarian pauses in air strikes".

The meeting is scheduled for 1500 GMT.

Violence has sharply escalated in Yemen following a Saudi-led air campaign launched on 26 March to stop an advance by Shiite Houthi rebels that forced President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has said that the country was "on the verge of total collapse".

Aid groups have raised alarm over civilian casualties following an air strike on a camp for displaced people and the bombing of a dairy. Dozens were killed in both attacks.

The UN is backing Hadi as Yemen's legitimate leader in the face of the Houthi uprising that has plunged the poor Arab state deeper into chaos.

The Houthis seized power in the capital Sanaa in February and last month advanced on the port city of Aden, Hadi's stronghold, forcing him to go into exile.

Saudi-led air strikes on Friday pushed back the Houthis, which Riyadh maintains are backed by Iran.

Russia's request to halt the airstrikes came as Gulf countries were pushing for a UN resolution that would impose an arms embargo and sanctions on the Houthis. 

But the draft text came up against strong opposition from Russia, which proposed amendments to apply the arms embargo to the entire country and to limit sanctions.

Also Friday, two Saudi border patrol guards were killed in a shootout in the country's southern Asir province on the border with Yemen, according to Saudi's official SPA press agency.

It was the second attack in three days to target a Saudi border station.

Border patrol troops in the province's al-Husun district came under heavy fire from a mountainous area in Yemeni territory, leading to a shootout that left two Saudi troops dead, the SPA quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying.

The SPA stopped short, however, of identifying the attackers.

Additionally, militants loyal to Hadi killed six Houthi militants in an ambush in Yemen's southern city of Aden, eyewitnesses said Friday.

A group of Houthi militants had been heading to Mansoura city in the Aden province when they came under fire from vigilantes, witnesses told The Anadolu Agency.

Six Houthis were killed and a number of others injured, they added, without saying whether there had been any casualties among the vigilantes.

The UN's peace envoy for Yemen, Jamal Benomar, flew to New York this week for meetings amid reports that Gulf countries were demanding that he be replaced.