As the clashes resumed, there were claims that some among Sunnis killed over the past week were foreigners, including from Europe and North America.
"The ceasefire collapsed after few hours," Huthi spokesman Ali al-Bakheeti told AFP.
Bakheeti accused foreign Salafist extremists in the village of Dammaj, of violating the truce announced on Monday by the UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar.
But a Salafist spokesman accused the Shiites of violating the ceasefire.
"The truce lasted only two hours, due to the Huthis' intransigence," Surur al-Wadii said by telephone from Dammaj.
Tribal sources said at least 11 people were killed last week, but Sunni Islamists put the death toll at around 50.
Wadii said that the dead included "a number of foreigners, including a French, Canadian, Russian and Asians."
Salafists say foreigners in Dammaj are there to study, but Huthis accuse them of being jihadists.
A Huthi statement on Saturday accused Sunni extremists of having "transformed the centre of Dammaj into a real barracks for thousands of armed foreigners."
On Monday, a Red Cross convoy entered the village -- where the Islamists are besieged by the Huthis -- and the aid group said its teams had evacuated 23 critically wounded people.
"There are still more wounded people in need of treatment, and we hope to be able to come back for them," the International Committee of the Red Cross's director in Yemen, Cedric Schweizer, said in a statement.
Fighting has centred on the Mazraa mosque and a Koranic school held by the Islamists in Dammaj, which rebels have besieged.
Benomar warned on Monday that the conflict "threatens the security of Yemen."
"Large groups of gunmen are being mobilised from different areas. This would have serious security implications," he said.
The Huthis have been battling the central government for nearly a decade, but this fighting has amplified the sectarian dimension of the conflict in remote northern Saada province, which has long been virtually inaccessible to reporters.
The Huthis, members of the Zaidi community, rose up in 2004 against ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh's government, accusing it of marginalising them politically and economically.
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