The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen denied on Saturday carrying out an air strike on a prison in the Houthi-controlled northern province of Saada, which aid organizations said killed at least 70 people, including migrants, women and children.
The coalition said the “allegations” accusing it of carrying out the raid, which flattened buildings and left rescuers searching with their bare hands for survivors among the wreckage, were “unfounded.”
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, condemned the attack, which coincided with coalition airstrikes on the port of Hodeidah, which killed three children and disrupted the Internet in this poor country.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also called for de-escalation between the coalition and the Houthis.
But the coalition spokesman, Brigadier General Turki Al-Maliki, said that “the allegations made by the militias are incorrect,” referring to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
The past week has seen a dramatic escalation in a conflict that has so far claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions, causing what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The latest wave of violence in Yemen’s seven-year war came after the Iran-backed Houthis on Monday claimed their first attack on Abu Dhabi, the capital of the coalition partner of the United Arab Emirates.
new stage
Observers believe that the Houthis have taken the war to a new stage by adopting the attack, which was carried out by a drone and using a missile, which killed three people, which is the first fatal attack that the UAE acknowledges taking place inside its territory and threatens to retaliate against it.
Following the attack, the Saudi-led coalition carried out several air strikes in Sanaa, Hodeidah and Marib, which it said were aimed at “destroying the capabilities of the Houthi militia.”
picture released, Archyde.com
Removal of rubble from the site of the airstrike on the detention center
The latest developments came in conjunction with a visit Thursday by United Nations envoy Hans Grundberg to Riyadh to discuss ways to end the war in Yemen and ensure stability in the Arabian Peninsula.
The internet outage for the second day in a row in Yemen, according to the NetBlocks Corporation, which monitors the internet, complicated the rescue efforts and the work of the media, as the arrival of information slowed dramatically.
A Houthi TV station showed footage from the scene of the raid, which targeted a prison in Saada, of men removing rubble with their own hands and injured people in a local hospital. Doctors Without Borders said one hospital had received more than 200 wounded.
“It is impossible to know the number of dead. It appears to have been a horrific act of violence,” said Ahmed Mahat, MSF’s head of mission in Yemen.
Eight aid organizations operating in Yemen said in a joint statement that the prison in Saada, which is considered the stronghold of the Houthis, was used as a detention center for migrants who made up the majority of victims.
The UN Security Council, at a meeting on Friday, unanimously condemned what it described as the “heinous terrorist attacks” on Abu Dhabi, but the Norwegian Council’s presidency also condemned the air strikes on Yemen.
In a subsequent statement, the UN Secretary-General reminded “all parties that attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Commenting on the air strike, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Friday that “there is a need for de-escalation between the Saudi-led military coalition on one side and the Iran-aligned Houthi group on the other.”
“The escalation of the fighting only exacerbates the dire humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people,” Blinken added in a statement issued by the State Department.
picture released, EPA
Detention center in Saada after the air strike
On Saturday, Iran condemned the recent air strikes on Houthi-controlled areas. Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh warned that the coalition “made the path to achieving a just peace in the country more difficult.”
Saudi Arabia accuses its regional rival Iran of providing military support to the Houthis, especially missiles and drones, charges Tehran denies.
Khatibzadeh said that there was no “serious determination to push for a political settlement of the crisis in Yemen,” warning that this would lead to “the destruction of the country and spreading instability in the region,” as he put it.
The Houthis warned foreign companies not to stay in the “unsafe” UAE, in a veiled threat to launch retaliatory attacks after Friday’s strikes.
“We advise foreign companies in the UAE to leave because they are investing in an unsafe country and because the rulers of this country continue their aggression against Yemen,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said.
Houthi rebels had seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, which triggered a Saudi-led intervention – backed by the United States, France and Britain – in March 2015. It was hoped that the intervention would last only a few weeks, but it is about to enter its eighth year without a solution. comprehensive in sight.