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Yemeni ministers return after Aden is recaptured

By Ed Adamczyk
Houthi fighters inspect the wreckage of a car at the site of an attack near of Qubbat al-Mahdi Mosque in Sanaa, Yemen on June 20, 2015. Several ministers of the exiled Yemeni government returned to Aden, Yemen, Thursday after the city was taken back from Houthi rebels. File Photo by Mohammad Abdullah/UPI
Houthi fighters inspect the wreckage of a car at the site of an attack near of Qubbat al-Mahdi Mosque in Sanaa, Yemen on June 20, 2015. Several ministers of the exiled Yemeni government returned to Aden, Yemen, Thursday after the city was taken back from Houthi rebels. File Photo by Mohammad Abdullah/UPI | License Photo

ADEN, Yemen, July 16 (UPI) -- Several ministers of the exiled Yemeni government returned to Aden, Yemen, Thursday after the city was taken back from Houthi rebels.

The delegation included the transport minister, the interior minister, the chief of intelligence and the deputy speaker of Parliament. They arrived by helicopter from neighboring Saudi Arabia, where a government-in-exile was encouraged to stay intact.

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Exiled President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi remained in Saudi Arabia, ordering the delegation to prepare the country for a revival of state institutions.

A militia group known as the Popular Resistance captured Aden Wednesday after a major offensive supported by Saudi Arabian airstrikes, taking the provincial government headquarters in the city's Mualla district, as well as a road overlooking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb maritime strait between Yemen and Djibouti.

The loss of Aden is a major setback for the Houthi rebels, who took control of Yemen in March. The offensive which captured Aden began after a collapse of a ceasefire, scheduled for Friday, to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians caught in the conflict. The United Nations reported over 3,200 people, half of them civilians, have been killed in ground combat and air strikes, and over one million more have been displaced, adding that 80 percent of Yemen's population is in need of humanitarian aid.

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