Yemen sets chaotic backdrop for Trump's Saudi visit

ADEN/DUBAI (Reuters) - Young men mangled in an explosion cling to life, motionless amid the chaos of a crowded hospital in Yemen's main southern city of Aden.

Having bandaged them, doctor Ahmed al-Garba shoves past fighters with rifles dangling at their sides and moves on to other patients.

"We treat soldiers with war wounds from bullets and bombs, even al Qaeda fighters. We don't ask people who they fight for when we treat them," Garba said.

Such scenes are repeated daily in Gumhuriya Hospital, evidence of a stalemated and increasingly messy war that offers no clear path to victory for Gulf Arab states hosting U.S. President Donald Trump this weekend.

The mostly Gulf Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by U.S. arms and intelligence, has waged a nearly two-year-old campaign on behalf of Yemen's internationally recognized government, which the Houthi movement - allied with Saudi's arch-foe Iran - is battling to dislodge.

Trump has signaled a tough new line on Tehran by choosing Riyadh for his first visit abroad.

But the Yemeni government's authority is fast eroding and, though nominally based in Aden, it resides mostly in Riyadh to avoid incessant bombings by Islamist militant groups al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Meanwhile the hospital scenes of children shriveled by hunger and men writhing from shrapnel wounds suggest the cost of the war in terms of human suffering is growing.

More than 10,000 people have died, 19 of the country's 28 million people need some form of aid, famine looms and the breakdown of the health system sparked a cholera outbreak that has killed nearly 200 people in less than three weeks. http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/news/world/story/0002/201...