Yemen reels
Rebels welcome action against deadly Saudi airstrike in Yemen
Houthis back UN call for probe after Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen leaves dozens, including children, dead.
SANAA ( Yemen): Yemen’s Syiah rebels are backing a United Nations 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.
Yesterday’s tweet by senior Yemeni rebel leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi says the rebels – known as Houthis – welcome the call and are willing to cooperate in an investigation of the airstrike in Saada province that hit a bus carrying civilians, including children, in a busy market.
In a statement after the attack on Thursday, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Yemen’s warring parties to take “constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations”.
Guterres also called for an “independent and prompt investigation”.
Yemeni medical officials said the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Syiah rebels conducted airstrikes in the rebel-held port city of Hodeida on Thursday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 70. But the coalition denied carrying out any attacks in the city.
The airstrikes took place close to the city’s main public hospital, al-Thawra, and near a popular fish market, the officials said.
The wounded, mostly civilians, were hospitalised. The medical officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.
Rebel-run Al Masirah TV reported that airstrikes killed 52 people and left more than 100 wounded.
The coalition’s spokesman, Col Turki al-Malki, told the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite news channel that it didn’t carry out any attacks on Hodeida and blamed the attacks on the rebels, known as Houthis. He said the coalition “follows a strict and transparent approach based on the rules international law.”
Ahmed Yehia, who witnessed the attack, said body parts were scattered in the area of the strike.
“There is a pond of blood outside the hospital’s building,” he said.
The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognised government has sought to expand control over rebel-held areas along Yemen’s west coast, particularly in the vital Red Sea port city of Hodeida, the main entry point for food in a country teetering on the brink of famine. The coalition has been at war with the Iran-aligned Houthis since March 2015.
UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths has held talks with both sides in recent weeks in the hopes of preventing a full-scale coalition assault on Hodeida. He has been pushing to bring the warring parties to restart peace talks. Yemen’s government maintains that the rebels’ “unconditional withdrawal” from Hodeida is key to restarting the talks. Houthis have long refused to hand over the city.
Later on Thursday, Griffiths announced plans to invite Yemen’s warring parties to Geneva on Sept. 6 to hold the first round of consultations.