Air strikes kill dozens in prisons

SANAA, Yemen — Dozens of prisoners and security personnel were feared dead after Saudiled air strikes Saturday battered two prisons in a western port city, security and medical officials said.

The air strikes bombed the al-Zaydiya security headquarters in the Red Sea port of Hodeida. The building contained two prisons, and many prisoners and security forces were killed in the strikes, officials said.

The city is under control of Yemen’s Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital and much of the northern region. The Houthis’ TV network al-Masirah said 43 people were killed in the strikes, but it was not immediately possible to verify the account.

The strikes came hours after warplanes bombed houses of civilians in the city of Taiz, killing at least 18 people, including children.

The latest air strikes come at a time when Yemen’s president in exile turned down a U.N. peace deal aimed at ending the country’s devastating conflict, saying it “rewards” Yemen’s rebels.

The proposed peace deal gives the Houthi rebels — who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and eventually forced President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi out of Yemen — a share in the future government. It also reduces some of the president’s powers in exchange for a rebel withdrawal from major cities.

Hadi made his remarks during a visit by the U.N. Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Saturday.

“The Yemeni people have condemned these ideas and the so-called road map out of belief that the deal is a gateway to more suffering and war,” a statement by the presidency quoted Hadi as saying. “It rewards the coup leaders and punishes the Yemeni people at the same time.”

The statement said Hadi told Ahmed that peace is only attainable when the rebel “coup” is reversed, based on a U.N. Security Council resolution that stipulates the rebels must lay down their weapons and withdraw from cities as a precondition to any peace agreement.

The conflict in Yemen has left more than 10,000 dead and injured and displaced nearly 3 million people. Rights groups have accused the Saudiled coalition of killing civilians, while trying to target rebels.