France’s Macron calls on Saudi King to lift Yemen blockade

French President Emmanuel Macron has called on Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz to lift the blockade imposed on Yemen, a source at the Elysee Palace said yesterday.

“The president expressed his strong concerns about the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and called on the Saudi King to lift completely the blockade to allow humanitarian aid and commercial goods to enter Yemen,” Reuters reported the unnamed source as saying.

The Saudi-led coalition of Arab states has imposed a complete air, sea and land blockade on Yemen after the Houthis fired a missile at Riyadh.

There have been repeated international requests that Saudi lifted the siege however the Kingdom has failed to respond.

Read: Saudi strikes kill 136 civilians in Yemen, UN says

Impoverished Yemen has remained in a state of civil war since 2014, when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sana’a.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 per cent of the country’s population has been displaced.