Nine people were killed in the explosion – the fourth attack on an MSF facility in less than a year – including one MSF staff member, while two more patients died while being transferred to another clinic, MSF said.
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Ayman Mazkour, who heads the health sector in Hajja province, said six people were killed and 20 wounded in the aerial attack, warning that the death toll could rise.
The hospital has been supported by the charity since July 2015, and since then more than 4,600 patients have received treatment at the facility.
“Deliberately targeting medical facilities is a serious violation of worldwide humanitarian law which would amount to a war crime”, said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International’s deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. “Deliberately targeting medical facilities is a serious violation of global humanitarian law which would amount to a war crime”.
MSF calls on all parties, and particularly the Saudi-led coalition responsible for the attack, to guarantee that such attacks do not happen again.
Dozens of air strikes have hit civilians in Yemen since a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia began military operations in March 2015 to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power and roll back gains by the Iran-allied Houthis.
Even with the recent United Nations resolution calling for an end to attacks on medical facilities and high-level declarations of commitment to global humanitarian law, nothing seems to be done to make parties involved in the conflict in Yemen respect medical staff and patients. “Either intentional or a result of a negligence, this is unacceptable”.
The raid comes less than 48 hours after MSF accused the coalition of killing 10 children in Saturday’s strikes on a Koranic school in Saada.
The U.S. State Department is “deeply concerned” about the reported hospital strike and is conferring with Saudi officials about civilian casualties, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau.
It is not the first time a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders has been hit in Yemen.
“People in Yemen continue to be killed and injured while seeking medical care”, Sancristóval said. “Continued military actions only prolong the suffering of the Yemeni people”.
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The hospital had a 14-bed emergency room, a maternity unit and a surgical unit. At the moment of the strike, there were 23 patients in surgery, 25 patients in the maternity ward, 13 new-borns and 12 paediatrics. The group was still trying to clarify how many patients were in the emergency room. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. Please see our terms of service for more information.
