GRAPHIC VIDEO: Massacre in Yemen’s Saada by Saudi Arabia-Led Airstrikes

Thu Sep 1, 2016 11:30:50

A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed at least 16 members of the extended family of a local mosque imam on Wednesday (August 31) in the northern Yemeni city of Saada, a Reuters witness, a medic and a resident said.

They said missiles struck a house of the imam, identified as Saleh Abu Zainah, in northern Saada province.

The imam, his family, his two sons and their families all died in the attack, they said. It was not clear how many children were killed in the attack.

A Saudi military spokesman said the coalition was checking whether the report was true and that an investigation would be conducted and its results published if the incident was verified!

Pictures taken by a Reuters photographer showed men digging up the body of a child from under the rubble.

The airstrike was the latest in a series of raids by the coalition, which is providing air support to Yemeni former fugitive President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in his fight against Yemeni people who have seized much of the country since 2014.

Graphic video images from the scene shot by the Houthi controlled Al Maseera TV showed residents frantically digging for survivors using a bulldozer.

A man on the scene told the Houthi-controlled al Maseera TV that rescue workers were concerned about fresh air strikes when they arrived at the scene and found aircraft still hovering overhead. “There are bodies still under the rubble until now. We can’t reach them. Since last night we haven’t been able to remove them (the victims) for fear the jets may come back and strike a second time,” he said.

It was at least the fourth strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a civilian target since UN-sponsored peace talks between the Yemeni people, Houthis and their General People’s Congress party allies on one side and the Saudi-backed mercenaries on the other ended without an agreement earlier this month.

On Aug. 18, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) decided to evacuate its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen after an air strike on a facility run by the medical charity that killed 19 people.

At least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen’s 18-month-old civil war, the United Nations said on Tuesday (August 30), approaching double the estimates of more than 6,000 cited by officials and aid workers for much of 2016.

S/SH 11

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