Sanaa, December 4 (RHC)-- At least 16 people, including children, have been killed in Saudi-led strikes in Yemen’s southwestern province of Ta'izz, a report says, as Saudi Arabia keeps bombing the southern impoverished neighbor in defiance of international calls to end its bloody war.

The deadly aggression occurred on Friday evening, when Saudi-led warplanes targeted a gathering of civilians in Muqbana district of the province, Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.

It added that continued presence of the enemy warplanes in the skies of Muqbana and the possibility of other strikes prevented the paramedics to reach the crime scene to exhume the bodies of the victims and attend to the wounded.

The airstrikes came as the Saudi-led forces and its mercenaries have escalated their aggression in the western coastal region of Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, backed by the U.S. and other key Western powers, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the former Riyadh-backed regime back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and displacing millions more.  The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.

An all-out blockade was also imposed on Yemen since the onset of the bloody war, pushing Yemen into the world's worst humanitarian crisis, including by hampering access to aid.

Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s continuous bombardment of the impoverished country, Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.