Air strikes hit Yemeni oil storage facilities, five killed: Workers

Air strikes by Saudi-led forces hit oil storage facilities at Yemen's Ras Isa port on the Red Sea on Thursday, killing at least five people, oil workers said.

They said the attack targeted a facility used to load tanker trucks with refined products for domestic distribution. The area was on fire and at least five people were killed, the workers said. The number of casualties was expected to rise, they said.

Ras Isa is Yemen's main oil export terminal but no shipments have been leaving since the Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in Yemen in March last year to shore up President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against his Iran-allied Houthi enemies.

Local oil workers said the oil exports facilities in the area and a nearby sugar refinery were not affected. The United Nations says nearly 6,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which began after the Houthis advanced on the southern port city of Aden, where Hadi had been based. Hundreds of thousands of people were also displaced by the fighting. (Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Sami Aboudi, editing by Yara Bayoumy and Dominic Evans)