Al Jazeera & AntiWar.com & Xinhua – 2018-08-24 00:48:56
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2018/08/houthis-saudi-uae-air-raids-kill-dozens-including-22-children-180823181946517.html
Houthis: Saudi-UAE Air Raids
Kill Dozens, Including 22 Children
Al Jazeera
More than 680 children have been killed in Saudi-lead airstrikes.
(August 23, 2018) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels say air raids by the Saudi-UAE military alliance have killed dozens of civilians, most of them children, in a reported incident two weeks after a coalition air attack on a school bus killed 40 boys.
According to the Houthi movement’s Al Massira TV, 22 children and four women died on Thursday as fighter jets targeted a camp for internally displaced people in Ad Durayhimi, which lies about 20km from the Red Sea city of Hodeidah.
Backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015 as part of a military campaign to reinstate the internationally recognised government of President Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
In 2014, Hadi and his forces were overrun by the Houthi rebels who currently control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.
Yemeni government forces — backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE — launched a major operation to retake Hodeidah and its strategic seaport from Houthi rebels in June.
Hussein al-Bukhaiti, a Yemeni journalist in Sanaa, said the death toll in Thursday’s air raids stood at 31, citing a medical source. “The Saudi strikes at first targeted a village in the Ad Durayhimi area south of Hodeidah, killing five people and injuring another two,” he told Al Jazeera.
Al-Bukhaiti said that 26 women and children had come under attack before boarding a bus in an attempt to flee, but a “second Saudi-UAE strike targeted that bus, killing everyone”.
Earlier on Thursday, the UAE state news agency WAM said that the Houthis had launched a ballistic missile in the same district, which resulted in the death of one child.
WAM said the strike in the recently recaptured village of al-Ghalifqa in Ad Durayhimi also wounded dozens of people, three of them seriously.
Ruinous War
Last year, the United Nations added the Saudi-UAE military coalition to a blacklist of child rights violators for causing the deaths and injuries of hundreds of children in Yemen.
On August 9, an air attack by the Saudi-UAE coalition hit a school bus in the Houthi-controlled province of Saada, killing 51 people, including 40 children.
According to munitions experts, a US-made bomb was used in the attack on the school bus, leading to further criticism over Washington’s role in the war in Yemen — described by the UN as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
“If it’s proved again that in this instance it was a missile from the US fired by the Saudi-led coalition, that will lead to greater calls and questioning of the US’ intervention and involvement in Yemen,” said Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti.
According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed in the three-year war — a death toll that has not been updated in years and is certain to be far higher.
In retaliation, the Houthis have launched dozens of missiles at the kingdom. Saudi authorities say over the past three years 90 ballistic missiles were fired by the rebels.
Multiple rounds of United Nations-brokered peace talks have failed to achieve any breakthrough.
Saudi Airstrike Kills 31 in
Key Yemeni Port, Mostly Children
Attack targeted camp for displaced people
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(August 23, 2018) – Saudi warplanes carried out an airstrike against the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah on Thursday, hitting a camp for internally displaced people, and killed at least 31 civilians. The slain included 22 children. 79 civilians were wounded, again overwhelmingly children.
According to reporters, multiple attacks took place against the camp. The initial strike sent children scrambling for an evacuation bus, then a subsequent strike hit the bus itself.
Saudi coalition officials claimed the Houthis, who are in control of the city, attacked the camp themselves. This is not possible, of course, because the Houthis don’t have any warplanes in the first place.
This marks the second major incident of the Saudi-led coalition killing large numbers of children in Yemen in recent weeks, both of the attacks involving attacking a bus. The previous attack, in Saada, killed 51 civilians, 42 of them children.
In the Saada attack, the coalition insisted attacking a school bus full of children was a “legitimate military action.” It is clear, however, that they don’t want to admit to this current attack, as they are trying to pin it, unconvincingly, on the Houthis.
22 Children, 9 Women Killed in Saudi-led
Airstrike on Yemen’s Hodeidah: Houthi Media
Xinhua
SANAA (August 23, 2018) — At least 22 children and nine women were killed in a Saudi-led airstrike on a camp of internally displaced families south of Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah on Thursday, Houthi rebel-controlled Saba news agency reported.
The air attack took place in the evening and targeted the camp in al-Durayhemi district, Saba said. The Saudi-led coalition was not immediately available for comments on the airstrike.
On Aug. 9, a previous coalition airstrike hit a school bus in Yemen’s northern province of Saada, killing 51, including 40 children, according to Johannes Bruwer, head of the International Committee of Red Cross delegation in Yemen.
In addition, among the 79 injured in the strike were 56 children, Bruwer said. The airstrike triggered public anger across Yemen and condemnation from international humanitarian agencies.
Yemen has been locked in a civil war since late 2014, when the Houthi rebels overran much of the country and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.
Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition that intervened in the Yemeni war in 2015 to support the government of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
The war has so far killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, and displaced about 3 million others.
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