A Saudi-led coalition air strike has hit a hospital in Yemen’s northern Hajja province, residents and local officials say, killing at least seven people and wounding 13.
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Doctors Without Borders, widely known by its French acronym MSF, said the attack was the fourth on one of its facilities in less than a year.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and called for a swift investigation.
The JIAT said it was also investigating Saturday’s strikes on the school in Saada.
The conflict in Yemen pits an internationally recognized government backed by a Saudi-led coalition against the Shiite rebels, who captured the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014.
“Hospitals and medical personnel are explicitly protected under global humanitarian law and any attack directed against them, or against any civilian persons or infrastructure, is a serious violation of worldwide humanitarian law”, the statement said.
Medical teams are treating the wounded after an airstrike hit the Abs hospital in Hajjah province, the group said.
The State Department expressed concern about the attack on the hospital, but dismissed reporters’ questions about possibly backing down on massive USA support for the Saudi air war, suggesting that the U.S. isn’t going to make this attack a serious deal, anymore than their “concern” about the previous Saudi airstrikes and the huge civilian death toll that has resulted.
Hours later, a 14-member investigative team made up of several coalition states and Yemen, promised to conduct an “independent” probe into the allegations.
The coalition denied targeting a school, saying instead that it bombed a camp at which rebels train underage soldiers.
Rebel sources said the coalition struck a first-aid building beside the facility.
Saudi government spokesman Mohammed al-Mansour, in comments published by the Saudi Press Agency, chronicled eight incidents that rights groups said killed hundreds of civilians.
“Hospitals and medical personnel are explicitly protected under worldwide humanitarian law and any attack directed against them, or against any civilian persons or infrastructure, is a serious violation of global humanitarian law”, Ban said in a statement.
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“Sanaa worldwide airport will be reopened to United Nations flights and those of other agencies from Monday”, a coalition statement said. “The number of killed and injured is unknown, it said”.
