UN takes aim at hospital air strike
SANAA: A senior UN official expressed alarm yesterday at deadly strikes in Yemen’s rebel-held port city of Hodeida including at the entrance to the war-wracked country’s largest hospital.
At least 20 people were killed and 60 wounded on Thursday in an air strike at the Al-Thawra Hospital and the bombardment of a fish market in Hodeida, according to medics and witnesses.
“This is shocking,” said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.
Hundreds of thousands of people depend on Al-Thawra, which is Yemen’s largest hospital, she said.
“Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law. Nothing can justify this loss of life.”
Yemeni government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition have been conducting an offensive to capture Hodeida from Iranbacked Huthi rebels, but announced last month they were pausing the assault to give UN mediation efforts a chance.
Strikes have picked up again around Hodeida since the Saudis last week said that two oil tankers operated by one of the kingdom’s companies were attacked in the waters of the Red Sea.
Rebel-run media outlets accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out the attacks in Hodeida on Thursday, but there was no immediate response from the alliance headed by Riyadh.
The fighting around Hodeida has raised UN fears of a new humanitarian catastrophe in a country already standing at the brink
of famine and gripped by a deadly cholera epidemic.
“Every day this week we have seen new cholera cases in Hodeida, and now this,” Ms Grande said.
Yemen’s war has killed nearly 10,000 people.