SAUDI ARABIA continued to detain Yemeni fuel ships yesterday as the war-stricken country faces its worst shortages since the start of the war in 2015.

The Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) accused Riyadh of “piracy in the Red Sea” in a press conference in Sanaa in which officials said the aim was the raise oil prices and “create chaos across the country.”

Experts said that the war between Russian and Ukraine exposed the double standards of world bodies which have failed to act on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen where some 70 per cent of the population rely on aid.

On Thursday YPC executive director Ammar al-Adrai claimed that British and US vessels refused to allow Yemen-bound fuel ships to offload their cargos.

Washington had “upped the ante” last year, he said, saying that just 5 per cent of ships that were carrying fuel were released.

The US-backed fuel blockade has cost Yemen around $6 million (£4. 5m) as people were forced to acquire oil from stations controlled by Saudi Arabian mercenaries.

“Obtaining fuel through the occupied ports costs about 50 per cent more than what is imported through the port of Hudaydah,” Mr Adrai said.

Earlier this month the YPC said that Yemen is experiencing the biggest fuel crisis since the Saudi-led war began nearly seven years ago.

Spokesman Essam al-Mutawakel said that cars were queueing for more than three kilometres to reach petrol stations in provinces across the country.

The Yemen-bound ships are being seized and transferred to Saudi Arabia’s Jizan port despite having received UN clearance. 

“We always wonder about the benefit of granting the oil tankers UN permits, and [at the same time] the justifications of the acts of piracy committed by the aggressor’s coalition against them in international waters,” Mr Mutawakel said.

Saudi air raids continued overnight with the Harad and Haryan districts of the northern Hajjah province among those targeted.

Jets pummelled residential areas in the north-western Saada province. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Saudi bombing raids have intensified since the beginning of the year with at least 70 people killed as a missile struck a detention centre in northern Yemen.

Three children died when missiles struck a telecommunications tower in the port city of Hudaydah as they played football nearby in the same week.

The Gulf kingdom was accused of war crimes last month when 11 people, mainly children, were killed in an air strike on a civilian area in Hajjah province.

It is believed that retaliatory drone strikes were responsible for a blaze at an oil facility in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

The Energy Ministry confirmed the refinery had been hit by an unmanned aerial vehicle but said that “operations and supplies of petroleum and its derivatives were not affected.”