Yemen rebel leader backs UN call for probe into airstrike

منتشر شده در 25 مرداد 1397

(10 Aug 2018) Yemen's Shiite rebels on Friday backed a UN call for a probe into a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the country's north that killed dozens of people the previous day, including many children, in an attack that drew wide international criticism.

Senior Yemeni rebel leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said on Twitter that the rebels - known as Houthis - welcome the call and are willing to cooperate in an investigation of the strike in Saada province that hit a bus carrying civilians, many of them school children, in a busy market in Dahyan district.

Taha al-Mutawakil, Minister of Health in the Houthi government said 51 people had been killed in the strike, including 40 children.

The United Nations said an exact death toll has yet to be confirmed but initial reports point to more than 60 casualties, with dozens severely wounded.

Al-Masirah reported at least 51 people, including 40 children, were killed and 79 others, including 56 children, were wounded in the airstrike, citing the Yemeni Health Ministry in the capital, Sanaa, which is under rebel control.

It also said three children have gone missing since the airstrike.

Graves were being prepared on Friday for those killed.

The coalition said it would investigate and spokesperson for the Saudi Embassy in Washington Fatimah S. Baeshen said in a statement the case was referred to the coalition's investigative body.

The coalition's statement signaled a shift in its earlier stance when spokesman Col. Turki al-Malki defended the attack as a "legitimate military action" and blamed the Houthis for recruiting children and using them in the battlefields as cover.

The coalition, which has been at war with the Houthis for more than three years, said the attack on Saada was in response to a missile fired by the rebels into the kingdom's south a day earlier.

Impoverished Yemen has been embroiled in the war pitting the Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-aligned Houthis since March 2015. Civilians have been enmeshed over the years in the conflict which has killed over 10,000, crippled the country's health system and pushed it to the brink of famine.

Yemen has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork