Houthis said they repelled attacks amid airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition but Yemen’s pro-government satellite TV broadcast footage of bodies and destroyed tanks and armoured vehicles from inside Sirwah.
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About 5,000 people, including 2,355 civilians, have been killed in air strikes and fighting on the ground since March this year, when Houthi fighters forced Yemen’s internationally recognised President to flee the country.
The rebels’ Almasirah television said on Twitter that the wedding was hit by “aggression warplanes”, referring to the coalition.
On Wednesday rights group Amnesty worldwide urged countries including the United States and Britain to stop arming the Saudi-led coalition.
A coalition spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment, but the Arab alliance says it does not target civilians and has accused the Houthis of carrying out the other attacks.
Coalition forces have not taken responsibility for the attack, but local residents say they are to blame.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels in Yemen denied yesterday that its warplanes bombed the wedding for the second time in days, dismissing the report as rebel propaganda.
Saudi-led warplanes struck a wedding ceremony in Yemen Thursday killing at least 30 people and leaving dozens injured in the western province of Dhamar, local press reported on Thursday.
News of the latest airstrikes emerged as officials said Yemeni government forces and their allies, including coalition troops, captured the last outpost of the Shiite Houthi rebels in the key Marib province.
The coalition again denied involvement.
Stephen O’Brien, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the news that civilians had been killed in Wednesday evening’s bombing.
Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) party also accepted the plan and reiterated in a statement on Tuesday its “fast position on ending hostilities and … on a peaceful solution to Yemen’s crisis”. “There must be an announcement of willingness to implement all articles of the (U.N.) resolution without any changes”.
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Sources close to the Houthis have said that diplomats from the European Union helped to draft the Houthi letter to Ban to try to overcome any objections from Hadi to resuming the talks.
