SANA, Yemen — Shi’ite rebels and their allies in Yemen randomly shelled a town Sunday outside of Aden after losing control of some of the port city’s neighborhoods, killing at least 45 people and wounding 120, officials said.
The violence highlighted the bloody chaos of the civil war gripping the Arab world’s poorest country, which also has been the target of Saudi-led airstrikes since late March.
A leader with the Shi’ite rebels, known as Houthis, denied shelling Dar Saad, a town just north of Aden and long home to fighters resisting their advances. But Yemeni medical officials and a doctor with an international aid organization said the shelling clearly came from the north and east of Dar Saad — areas under rebel control.
In Aden, the scene of some of the war’s fiercest ground battles, Saudi-backed troops and fighters seized from the Houthis some neighborhoods and its international airport last week. Sunday’s shelling in Dar Saad appeared to be a way to both punish those resisting the Houthis, as well as halt the advance of their enemy.
Yemeni medical and military officials said hundreds of residents fled Dar Saad amid the shelling as ambulances rushed through the streets, sirens wailing. They said the shelling killed at least 45 people and wounded 120, all believed to be civilians.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to brief journalists.
Abdu Mohammed Madrabi, 65, said he was in line outside the post office to collect his pension when the shells hit, causing chaos. Madrabi, who was wounded in the neck, back, and leg, said many private cars carried the wounded to hospitals because there weren’t enough ambulances.
The shelling was intense in the neighborhood of Sharqiya, hundreds of yards from the post office.
‘‘It’s been one shell after the other since the morning,’’ said Arwa Mohammed, a resident of Sharqiya locked up in one room with her seven-member family for safety. ‘‘We are feeling the house is going to collapse over our head.’’
Zeifullah al-Shami, a Houthi leader, denied targeting civilians in the shelling, saying his forces engaged the rivals on the front lines. ‘‘This is part of the media deception,’’ he said.
However, rebels had vowed to retaliate after losing ground in Aden. The rebels now are largely based in Aden’s western neighborhood of Tawahi.