60 killed in Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Yemen
SANA’A/HODEIDAH, Yemen: Arab coalition warplanes bombed a security complex near the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, killing 60 people including inmates of a prison on the site, authorities said yesterday.
The prison in the city’s al-Zaydiyah district was holding 84 inmates when it was struck three times on Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the Houthi rebel-controlled Hodeidah province of the same name, said.
Local officials said the site lies within a security complex for the area guarded by Houthi militiamen but that only prison security guards were present during the night-time air strike.
The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Yemen’s armed Houthi movement since March last year to try to restore the internationally recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was driven into exile by the Iran-allied group in late 2014.
A witness at the security complex said the entire building was destroyed and medics took 17 bodies away. Many had missing limbs. Others remained stuck under the rubble.
One of the strikes directly targeted the building, the witness added, bringing it down over the heads of prisoners, while two others hit the gate of the complex and nearby administration buildings.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The air attack was one of the deadliest among thousands of bombings which have largely failed to dislodge the Houthis from the capital Sana’a but have repeatedly hit schools, markets, hospitals and homes, killing many civilians.
Rights groups have said the raids may amount to war crimes, but an investigative body set up by the coalition largely defended its methods in a report which concluded that Houthi rebels regularly deploy to civilian sites.
The Houthis deny this and a top official in the movement criticised the UN and the Saudis’ key ally and arms supplier, the US, for not doing enough to hold the kingdom accountable for its air strikes.
“We condemn the position of the international community and the UN for providing cover for the crimes of Saudi Arabia against Yemenis, and they are subject to the wishes of America,” Saleh al-Samad said.
The bombing may signal a renewed surge in violence a day after Hadi rejected a new UN peace proposal to end the turmoil in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, saying the deal would only be a path to more war.