Saudi-led strike kills 29 at Yemen market
madaresharghi A Saudi-led coalition airstrike killed 29 people at a crowded marketplace in northern Yemen on Wednesday, the Houthi Ansarullah movement’s health authorities said. The coalition, which has faced repeated international criticism over civilian casualties, did not immediately confirm or deny that it was behind the attack in Sa’ada governorate, AFP reported. Residents at the […]
A Saudi-led coalition airstrike killed 29 people at a crowded marketplace in northern Yemen on Wednesday, the Houthi Ansarullah movement’s health authorities said.
The coalition, which has faced repeated international criticism over civilian casualties, did not immediately confirm or deny that it was behind the attack in Sa’ada governorate, AFP reported.
Residents at the scene picked through the remnants of stalls, some still smoldering, reduced to spindly metal frames and scattered wreckage, AFP photos showed.
The charred bodies of the victims, many of their faces disfigured beyond recognition, were laid on white body bags for families to identify in the courtyard of a hospital morgue.
The health service said 29 people were killed and 17 others wounded, while the Houthi-run Saba news agency gave a lower toll of 21 dead, all of them civilians.
The alliance did not respond to requests for comment on whether its forces carried out the strike.
But it enforces an air blockade on the country and is the only force whose warplanes are known to operate in Yemen’s north along the Saudi border.
The United Nations blacklisted the coalition in October for killing and maiming children, drawing fresh calls from rights groups to step up pressure on Riyadh over the conflict.
The coalition was briefly included on the annual list of shame last year before a threat by Saudi Arabia to cut off its funding to UN programs forced a reversal.
Human rights groups have urged governments backing the coalition, including the United States, Britain and France, to suspend all weapons sales to the Persian Gulf monarchy.
Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to reinstate former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement. Riyadh has, however, failed to reach its goals despite suffering great expense.
More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign, and much of the country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been ravaged.
Yemen also faces a deadly cholera outbreak that has claimed nearly 2,000 lives and affected more than half a million people since late April.