Scores of Sudanese Mercenaries Killed, Injured In Fierce Fighting With Yemeni Forces

By Staff, Press TV

Nearly a dozen Sudanese soldiers were killed as intense fighting between Saudi-led coalition forces and Takfiri militants on one side and Yemeni army troops and their allies on the other in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern region of Jizan.

Beirut-based al-Mayadeen news network, citing military sources, reported that Yemeni soldiers and allied fighters from the Popular Committees are advancing in the area and have taken control of multiple locations in the al-Huthirah district.

The sources said 10 Sudanese mercenaries were killed and at least 17 others injured in fresh fighting. 

Back in June 2019, then deputy chairman of Sudan's Transitional Military Council [TMC] General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo admitted in a public address that as many as 30,000 Sudanese soldiers were fighting alongside Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen.

Sudanese forces, he said, were the biggest among the Saudi-led coalition.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni forces on Friday continued their advances east of Yemen's strategic city of Marib, and reached the fringes of oil fields, military sources said.

They said intense clashes were underway between Saudi-backed militants loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and Yemeni armed forces on several fronts in Eastern Balaq and Eastern Sahara districts.

The sources said Yemeni troops and Popular Committees fighters had established control over al-Botr, al-Naqa’a and al-‘Akkad areas, which sit east of al-Balaq mountain range.

Locals also said fierce clashes were going on around Safar oil fields, which are under the control of Saudi mercenaries and that the exchange of gunfire has stopped operations at the fields and a nearby refinery.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States and regional allies, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.

The war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead, and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.

Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s incessant bombardment of the impoverished country, the Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.