24 killed in air raid on Yemen market

SANAA: At least 24 civilians were killed in an air raid on Sunday on a market in northern Yemen, a medical official and witnesses said, blaming the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels.

Most of the casualties worked in the Mashnaq market in the rebel-controlled Saada province on the Saudi border, an official at a nearby hospital said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said the market was a centre for trafficking in khat, a leafy stimulant plant that is widely used in Yemen but illegal in Saudi Arabia.

One of the witnesses said some of the casualties had “just returned from a trip across the border”.

The Saudi-led military coalition has been accused of air strikes in Yemen for more than two years against areas controlled by the rebels. Saada itself has come under heavy bombing since 2015, when the coalition intervened to support the government of Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in its fight against the rebels.

The coalition claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on the rebel-held capital Sanaa in October 2016 which targeted a gathering of mourners at a funeral ceremony, people.

The rebels have also accused the coalition of a raid last month that killed 23 civilians, including women and children, in the southwestern city of Taez.

The coalition — which accused the rebels of using civilians as “human shields” — has not claimed responsibility for that attack.

The rebels, who control a string of strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline and the norther highlands that border Saudi Arabia, have sporadically launched rocket attacks across the border. killing more than 140