At least 20 people have been killed in clashes between Yemen’s popular committees back by the the Houthi movement and al-Qaeda militants in the southern city of Aden.

At least 70 others have sustained injuries in the clashes over the past 24 hours, according to media reports on Thursday.

Eyewitnesses also reported that severe clashes erupted between the committees and the militants in the Crater district of the port city.

Heavy clashes were also reported between the two sides in the northern districts of Mansoura, Dar Saad and Sheikh Othman.

The development comes as Saudi Arabia keeps pounding the neighboring country. Early on Thursday, Saudi-led fighter jets carried out raids in Yemen’s capital city of Sana’a and the provinces of Taizz, Shabwah and Sa'ada.

The UN special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani, has warned the international community to prepare for a massive displacement and humanitarian crisis in Yemen as civilians flee the Saudi bombings and clashes.

The UN expert also slammed a Saudi-led airstrike, which hit a refugee camp in northern Yemen on March 30, describing it as “a grave violation against some of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable civilians.”

Saudi Arabia’s military aggression against Yemen started on March 26, without a UN mandate, in a bid to restore power to the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Several hundred people have so far been killed and many more injured in the Saudi attacks on Yemen.

The UN says at least 74 children have been killed since the beginning of the Saudi-led strikes. The real figure is thought to be much higher. The turmoil has forced over 100,000 people from their homes.

Reporting from the site of a Saudi air raid in Sana’a, Press TV correspondent Yousef Mawry said a ten-story building had been targeted, two stories of which have been wiped out.

A Yemeni man in the neighborhood said, “There are no militants in this area, there are just civilians.”

A Yemeni woman whose house had been targeted said, “My son and my daughter are right now in intensive care, they have suffered from critical injuries,” adding that, “My daughter suffered a head injury and probably a fractured skull and my son sustained injuries in his chest area.”

By Press TV