Saudi-led airstrikes kill 14 civilians
Saudi-led coalition fighter jets rained bombs on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Friday levelling houses packed with civilians and killing at least 14 people, including eight members of a single family, relatives and witnesses said.
The family’s one-year-old baby was among those killed, they said, looking over the rubble of one of the bombed homes in the city’s southern district of Fag Attan, hours after the attack.
The bombing was the latest in a significant escalation in the coalition’s air campaign in Yemen. On Wednesday, at least 41 people died when aircraft bombed a small hotel in the town of Arhab, north of Sanaa.
The attacks prompted calls for an investigation by both the coalition’s top ally, the internationally recognized government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and the United Nations.
“What happened today in Fag
Attan in the capital by the fighter jets against the civilians requires an investigation by the coalition,” Yemeni Foreign Minister AbdelMalek al-Mekhalfi posted on Twitter, in what appeared to be a rare show of discontent at the government’s main backer.
Over the past two years, more than 10,000 people have been killed and three million displaced amid the coalition’s relentless air campaign against Yemen’s Iranbacked Shiite rebels. The Saudiled campaign is seeking to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government back to power.
The worst-hit house in Friday’s attack in Fag Attan was a threestory building occupied by at least three families. Mohammed al-Rimi and his wife lived on the first floor with their six children. A brother-in-law was visiting. They all perished, except one child.
Mohammed’s brother, Ali Nasr al-Rimi said he was speaking with him on the phone when the airstrikes started.
“We heard the first, second and third explosion, then after the fourth blast, the line was cut,” he said. “I was so afraid, I rushed to the house. I couldn’t recognize the place.”
For hours, he said he had been retrieving the bodies of his brother’s family, “all torn into pieces.” One of his brother’s children survived, three-year-old Bothina. Her leg was smashed by a huge chunk of cement, Ali Nasr al-Rimi said.
Another relative sat by in shock, helplessly watching bulldozers removing rubble and searching for more bodies. The death toll was expected to rise.