The rebels have accelerated their push to take Marib in recent months SANAA: Flighting flared up this week between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and pro-government forces in the country’s southern province of Shabwa, killing 35 from both sides, tribal leaders and security officials said on Thursday. Clashes are now in their third day in several districts of the government-controlled province, including Bayhan and Usaylan, said the officials and the elders. Dozens have been wounded on both sides, they said. In Shabwa, government forces regained control of areas that Houthis had captured earlier this week, the officials said. The rebel offensive on Shabwa is believed to be aimed at disrupting a key line of communication through which pro-government reinforcements are sent to the central province of Marib, where fighting has been raging for several months. The rebels have accelerated their push to take Marib in recent months, while escalating cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition has launched dozens of airstrikes on towns in Marib — including Rahbah, Sirwah and Madghel — to back pro-government ground forces, The head of the UN food agency has warned that 16 million people in Yemen “are marching toward starvation” and said food rations for millions in the war-torn nation will be cut in October unless new funding arrives. David Beasley said at a meeting on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis that the US, Germany, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other donors stepped up when the World Food Programme was running out of money earlier this year and “because of that we averted famine and catastrophe.” WFP is running out of money again, he said, and without new funding, ration reductions will be made for 3.2 million people in October and for 5 million by December. At a virtual pledging conference co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland on March 1, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for $3.85 billion for Yemen this year. But donors pledged less than half the amount — $1.7 billion, which the UN chief called “disappointing.” ad Yemen on Thursday received its third batch of COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX global vaccine-sharing scheme, the Health Ministry said. A delivery of 356,000 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Aden, the temporary capital of the internationally recognized Yemeni government. Health Minister Qasem Buhaibeh said the vaccines will be distributed to people who had already received one AstraZeneca dose. Yemen received 360,000 doses of AstraZeneca in March, followed by 151,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson in August. The government’s emergency coronavirus committee has registered 8,830 coronavirus infections and 1,664 deaths so far although the true figure is thought to be much higher as the war has restricted COVID-19 testing and reporting. The Iran-aligned Houthi movement has provided no figures since a couple of cases in May 2020. COVAX is co-led by the Gavi Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization and aims to provide COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries.