The United Nations special envoy to Yemen will hold separate "proximity" peace talks with both sides in Geneva on Sunday with the hope of bringing the warring parties to the same table eventually, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has convened the talks, expected to last three days, to try to end more than two months of war between Iran-backed Houthis and forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia.
"The talks will start as proximity talks, which means the envoy will be shuttling between the two groups in the hope that he can bring them together during these consultations," U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told a news briefing in Geneva.
The strikes, which started in the early hours of the morning, destroyed five houses and damaged several other buildings, the Houthi rebel-controlled agency said.
For more than 11 weeks, an Arab military grouping led by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Houthis, now the dominant group in Yemen, in a bid to restore the exiled president to power and support local fighters in battlefields nationwide.