2023-04-20 09:11:29
- George Wright
- BBC News
At least 78 people were killed in a stampede at a school in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, during a Ramadan donation distribution, officials said.
Television footage shows a crowd of people unable to move, many of them suffering from overcrowding, in the Bab al-Yemen area of the city.
Hundreds of people were reported to have crowded into the school late Wednesday to receive donations amounting to around 5,000 Yemeni riyals, or regarding $9 per person.
A video clip posted on social media shows people screaming and dozens of dead bodies on the ground, some immobile, and other people trying to help.
The Ministry of the Interior said that it had arrested two men from the area working in the field of trade and business who were said to have arranged the event, and that it was investigating them.
A ministry spokesman blamed the stampede on the “random distribution” of funds without coordination with local officials.
A health official in Sanaa said that several people were also injured, and that 13 of them were in critical condition.
“Women and children were among the dead,” a Houthi security official was quoted by Agence France-Presse.
The Associated Press news agency quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the Houthi fighters fired in the air in order to control the crowds, and it appears that the bullets hit an electric wire, and this led to an explosion.
Witnesses added that this caused panic and this led to a stampede.
image copyright Archyde.com
A health official in Sanaa said that several people were also injured, and that 13 of them were in critical condition
The Houthis are said to have subsequently closed the school and prevented people, including journalists, from approaching.
It was reported that the Houthis agreed to pay $2,000 to each family that lost a relative, while the injured would receive regarding $400.
The event took place during the last days of Ramadan and before Eid al-Fitr.
Last week began a major exchange of prisoners between the warring parties in Yemen, which is part of the intensified efforts to end the devastating eight-year conflict.
Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, head of the Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee, blamed the stampede on the country’s humanitarian crisis.
“We hold the countries of aggression responsible for what happened and the bitter reality that the Yemeni people live in because of the aggression and blockade,” he said on Twitter.
information Asabad:
• Yemen was devastated by conflict that escalated in 2015, when the Houthis took control of large parts of the country and a Saudi-led coalition intervened to support the Yemeni government
• More than 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which is widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran
• More than 23 million people – three quarters of the population – need some form of assistance
• The seat of Yemen’s internationally recognized government is now in Aden
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