Yemeni photojournalist shot dead in Taiz

A Yemeni photojournalist has been shot dead in the southwestern city of Taiz, according to a local military spokesman on Monday.

Mohamed al-Taheri was killed near a hospital in southern Taiz by an unidentified sniper, Colonel Abdul Basit al-Bahar told Anadolu Agency.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

Held by government forces, Taiz has been under a siege imposed by Houthi rebels since 2015.

The city has seen a spate of assassinations of military and security personnel and mosque preachers and in recent months.

Impoverished Yemen has remained wracked by conflict since 2014, when Shia Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including capital Sanaa.

The conflict escalated the following year when Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Arab allies launched a wide-ranging air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi gains in Yemen.

The violence has devastated the country’s infrastructure, prompting the UN to describe the situation as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times”.