58 killed in fighting for key port

Dozens of combatants were killed as pro-government forces closed in on rebel forces in the heart of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida yesterday, hospital sources said.

Medics at hospitals inside the city reported 47 rebels had been killed in overnight ground fighting and air raids by a Saudi-led coalition supporting the government.

Sources at hospitals in government-held areas on the outskirts said 11 soldiers had also been killed.

Over the past week, Yemeni government forces backed by coalition troops have slowly edged into the city of some 600,000 people, one of the last rebel strongholds on the Red Sea coast.

An army source in Hodeida said rebel trenches and landmines had slowed their advance into the city yesterday.

Nearly 80 percent of Yemen's commercial imports and practically all UN-supervised humanitarian aid pass through Hodeida.