16 members of cleric’s family killed in Yemen
Missiles struck a house of the cleric, identified as Saleh Abu Zainah, in Saada, northern Yemen
SANAA: At least 16 members of the extended family of a Yemeni mosque cleric were killed on Wednesday in an air strike on their family home in northern Yemen by the Saudi-led Arab coalition, a Reuters witness, a medic and a resident said.
It was the latest in a series of raids by the coalition, which is providing air support to Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in his fight against Houthis who have seized much of the country since 2014.
They said missiles struck a house of the cleric, identified as Saleh Abu Zainah, in Saada, the capital of Saada province in northern Yemen, home of the Houthi group.
The cleric, his family, his two sons and their families, all died in the attack, including at least four children, they said.
Pictures taken by a Reuters photographer showed men digging up the body of a child from under the rubble.
“The air raid happened in the morning and because the house was made of mud, it took us until noon to be able to dig the bodies out,” said Nayef, a resident who helped remove the rubble to re- cover the bodies. A medic said rescue workers were concerned about fresh air strikes when they arrived at the scene and found aircraft still hovering overhead.
It was at least the fourth strike by the Saudi-led coalition to hit a civilian target since UN-sponsored peace talks between the Houthis and their General People’s Congress party allies on one side and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government ended without an agreement earlier this month.
The United Nations human rights office called on August 25 for more light to be shed on the Saudi-led coalition air strikes in Yemen and for violations including attacks on protected sites like hospitals to be punished.
Coalition air strikes were responsible for some 60 per cent of the civilians killed since march 2015, a report said.
At least 10,000 people have been killed overall in Yemen’s 18-month-old civil war, the UN said on Tuesday, approaching double the estimates of more than 6,000 cited by officials and aid workers for much of 2016.
New push for peace
UN Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that he would resume consultations with the parties to the conflict in a bid to take advantage of a new push for peace agreed by United States, Gulf Arab states and the UN earlier this month. “My priority will be to gain a re-commitment from all sides to the cessation of hostilities,” he said. “The escalation in fighting has led to tragic and unnecessary civilian deaths, casualties and a worsening of humanitarian suffering.”