UN calls for probe into Saudi attack
■ Saudi strike in Yemen killed 29 children, all under 15
Sanaa, Aug. 10: Yemen’s Shia rebels on Friday backed a UN call for a probe into a Saudi- led coalition airstrike in the country’s north that killed dozens of people the previous day, including many children, in an attack that drew wide international criticism.
Senior Yemeni rebel leader Mohammed Ali alHouthi said on Twitter that the rebels — known as Houthis — welcome the call and are willing to cooperate in an investigation of the strike in Saada province that hit a bus carrying civilians, many of them school children, in a busy market in Dahyan district.
In a statement after Thursday’s airstrike, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Yemen’s warring parties to take “constant care to spare civilians” during military operations and also called for an “independent and prompt investigation.”
The United Nations said an exact death toll has yet to be confirmed but initial reports point to more than 60 casualties, with dozens severely wounded. The rebel- run Al Masirah TV reported at least 51 killed and 79 wounded in the airstrike, citing the Yemeni Health Ministry in the capital, Sanaa, which is under rebel control.
It also said three children have gone missing since the airstrike.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said its team received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old, and treated 48 wounded, 30 of them children.
Following the strike, Al Masirah broadcast horrific images of lifeless bodies of children, covered in blood, and others who appeared severely wounded, lying on hospital stretchers crying and screaming in pain.