At least 100 killed in airstrikes

Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen launched multiple airstrikes against a detention center.

SANAA, Yemen — The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen launched multiple airstrikes on Sunday against a detention center operated by the Houthi rebels in the province of Dhamar, killing at least 100 people and wounding dozens more, officials and the rebels’ health ministry said.

Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, suggested that the death toll could be higher after visiting the site of the attack. A Red Cross statement said the detention center held around 170 detainees — 40 were being treated for injuries, the rest were presumed dead.

The attack was the deadliest so far this year by the coalition, according to the Yemen Data Project, a database tracking the war. The coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians.

Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized Yemeni government in March 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis took the capital. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The attack comes as the Saudi-led coalition’s partners — chiefly the United Arab Emirates and Yemeni militias — are increasingly at odds over the war’s aims. The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen’s south between Saudibacked and Emirati-backed forces.

Yemeni officials said Sunday’s strikes targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels were using as a detention center. The coalition denied it had struck a detention center, saying it had targeted a military site.

“We were sleeping and around midnight, there were maybe three, or four, or six strikes. They were targeting the jail,” wounded detainee Nazem Saleh said.

GETTY-AFP People inspect the rubble of a detention center in Yemen’s Dhamar province hit by Saudi-led airstrikes on Sunday.