Saudi, two Indians killed by missile fired from Yemen

Armed Yemeni tribesmen hold position in Sirwah, west of Marib city.

AFP/Riyadh

A missile fired from war-torn Yemen has struck a Saudi border city, killing three civilians, the kingdom said, in yet another violation of a ceasefire aimed at helping peace talks.

Saturday's attack on Najran left one Saudi citizen and two Indian workers dead, according to a civil defence spokesman quoted by the official SPA news agency.

India's consul general in Jeddah, B.S. Mubarak, confirmed that two Indians from the southern state of Tamil Nadu were killed in the attack near a museum on the edge of Najran.

Another Indian was killed in shelling in the border region about six months ago, he said.

The latest incident comes after the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels in Yemen announced that two ballistic missiles were fired Friday at the kingdom from its neighbour.

One of the missiles was intercepted by Saudi air defences, while the other struck a desert area east of Najran, the coalition said without reporting any casualties in that incident.

The attack had prompted Saudi Arabia's border guard to repeat a warning that residents should stay away from the frontier.

On Thursday the civil defence agency said a civilian had been wounded in the Jazan border region by shelling from Yemen.

The ceasefire has been repeatedly breached since it came into force as UN-sponsored talks opened Tuesday in Switzerland.

Since March, Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition whose warplanes and troops have supported embattled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against the rebels who have seized the capital and other areas.

More than 5,800 people have been killed - about half of them civilians - and over 27,000 wounded in Yemen since then, according to the UN.

In Saudi Arabia, more than 80 people, most of them soldiers and border guards, have died in shelling and cross-border skirmishes since March.