Three people have been killed in attacks on Saudi airports, the country's civil aviation authorities said on Wednesday, as fighting intensified in Yemen between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces.

One person was killed and eight wounded in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh, and two were killed and 28 wounded in an attack on facilities at Abha airport, it said in a statement.

One of the attacks was on Wednesday and the other on Tuesday, the civil aviation authorities said, without saying which attack had occurred on which day.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis vowed retaliation, saying the attacks "will not go unpunished".

In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the coalition said it had attacked more than 80 Houthi military sites across the governorates of Saada, Hodeidah, Jawf and Marib.

The Saudi airport attacks were among a series of strikes targeting aviation infrastructure on Wednesday.

The Houthis attacked Aden's international airport with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones earlier on Wednesday, the country's Transport Ministry said. One missile landed near the runway minutes before a flight from Cairo was due to land, the ministry said.

The airport is the main international gateway for parts of Yemen outside Houthi control.

Battles in Yemen have focused in recent days on areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a shipping route that has become more crucial for energy exports since the conflict between the US and Iran restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

This week, Yemeni government forces with Saudi-led coalition air support launched a counteroffensive to recapture strategic territory near the strait and around the town of Mocha that the Houthis had captured in September, but it is unclear if their advance will hold.

The fighting, a spillover from the wider US-Iran conflict, has revived a complex 12-year war in Yemen that led to one of the worst humanitarian crises globally and fragmented the Arab world's most impoverished country.

The number of people displaced since the latest round of fighting began has risen to more than 200,000, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.

"People are running for their lives and finding nowhere safe to go," said IOM Director General Amy Pope, who called for more funding amid rising needs for food and shelter.

Both sides allege that hundreds of people have been killed in fighting, without providing details.

The UN says three in four families are going hungry in parts of Yemen.

The Houthis have repeatedly targeted infrastructure including airports, oil refineries and pipelines in Saudi Arabia, a US ally. (Reuters)




Edited by Cecil Wong