Dozens dead in Yemen as bus carrying children hit by airstrike - ICRC
Dozens of civilians – mostly children – have been killed, and many more wounded, in an airstrike by the USbacked, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that hit a bus in the rebel-held north of the country.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians on the ground in the war-torn country, said that a hospital supported by the organisation has received dozens of casualties following the attack at a market in Dahyan, in the Sa’ada governorate.
“Under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict,” the organisation tweeted.
Johannes Bruwer, head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, tweeted: “Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10.”
It was not possible to confirm the death toll, but Abdul-Ghani Nayeb, a health department chief in Saada, said 43 were killed and at least 61 injured, according to Reuters. There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition.
The Saudi-led coalition, also backed by the UAE, has launched a military intervention in Yemen since 2015 aimed at countering the advances of Iranbacked Houthis, who are viewed by Riyadh as Iranian proxies. The Saudi intervention is also aimed at reinstating the ousted president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Riyadh and Tehran are on the opposing ends of the three-year conflict in Yemen. In recent months, Saudi and UAE coalition forces have advanced towards the port city of Hodeidah, which is held by Houthis and is where most aid and food come through Yemen. In response, Houthis have intensified missile attacks on Saudi soil and targets, and recently Houthi missile attacks on two oil tankers off the Yemeni coast led to Saudi Arabia temporarily suspending oil shipments through the strategic shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb.
In recent weeks, the Saudi-led coalition has been accused of carrying out airstrikes near Hodeidah, the focus of fierce fighting, claiming the lives of more than 25 people and injuring 50 more. The bombs fell close to a hospital and fish market.
The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said that since June this year, when fighting around Hodeidah escalated, its partners in the area have registered 50,500 displaced households.
“We’ve said this before and we are saying it again - parties to the conflict are obliged to do everything possible to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure. This is not a voluntary commitment - it is mandatory on all belligerents,” Lise Grande, the UN Yemen humanitarian coordinator, said on Thursday. “So many people have died in Yemen - this conflict has to stop.”
The coalition has been criticised for targeting civilian areas, such as markets and even hospitals during Yemen’s three-year conflict, which has claimed more than 10,000 lives and left millions of people on the brink of starvation.
According to Yemen Data Project, an independent group collecting data about the Yemen conflict, the SaudiUAE coalition carried out 258 airstrikes on Yemen in June alone – nearly onethird of which hit residential areas.
Sa’ada has been previously a target of Saudi airstrikes. In August 2016, an attack hit a school in the Haydan district, killing 10 students who were all under 15, according to Médecins Sans Frontières. An attack on the same day in Razih district hit the house of the school principle, killing his wife, four children and relatives.
Yemen has widely been described as the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis. Between January and May, aid agencies helped 7.5 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said earlier this month.
Martin Griffiths, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, told the security council earlier this month that he would convene the country’s first talks in two years to secure peace between Saudi-backed forces and Houthi rebels. He has said that “time was long past” for negotiations to resume, adding he would bring the parties together on 6 September in Geneva.