Houthi missiles hit mosque, killing 26

Pro-government fighters targeted at Friday prayers

ADEN // Yemen’s Houthi rebels yesterday killed dozens of pro-government fighters in a missile attack on a mosque during Friday prayers.

A loyalist military source said the attack targeted the mosque at Kofel camp in Marib province, east of the rebel-held capital Sanaa.

Hospital officials in Marib city, the provincial capital, said at least 26 pro- government fighters were killed.

A military official in Marib said the attack had been carried out with Katyusha-type rockets, but the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency said the rebels used Iranian- made Zelzal- 1 missiles, and backed it up with by artillery fire.

“Dozens of bodies of burnt soldiers were evacuated from the site,” Saba said, but did not say that a mosque had been hit.

Pro-government forces have retaken large parts of Marib province from the Iran-backed rebels since the March 2015 launch of a Saudi-led intervention in favour of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi.

Earlier yesterday, more than 40 Somali refugees, including women and children, were shot dead aboard a boat in the Red Sea off the west coast of Yemen.

It was not clear who was behind the attack. The refugees were hit by light weapons fire in the waters off the rebel- controlled port of Hodeidah, but they managed to dock in the city’s harbour, a port official said.

The International Organisa- tion for Migration (IOM), which has operations in Yemen, said 42 bodies were recovered.

More than 30 people who were wounded were taken to hospital, reports said.

The port official said dozens of Somalis who survived the attack, as well as three Yemeni traffickers, had been taken to the city’s prison.

The rebel- controlled Saba agency accused the Saudi- led coalition battling the rebels of attacking the refugees from the air but did not provide further details. Maj Gen Ahmed Assiri, a spokesman for the coalition, dismissed the accusation and said its forces had not been involved in fighting in Hodeidah. “There has been no firing by the coalition in this zone,” he said.

The coalition has been supporting pro-government forces who are waging an offensive from the south to retake Yemen’s Red Sea coast from the Iranbacked Houthi rebels.

It was unclear whether those on board were trying to leave Yemen or seek refuge there, but the IOM said it believed the boat was heading for Sudan.

Despite a war that has cost more than 7,000 lives and brought the country to the brink of famine, Yemen continues to attract people who are fleeing the Horn of Africa. Several refugee camps in southern Yemen host Somali refugees, although not in the Hodeidah area. UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said that as conditions worsened in Yemen, refugees were starting to use areas farther to the north as a transit route.