An Arab military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, has been conducting air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen since March 2015 in support of the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
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Eleven people were killed and 19 others wounded after an airstrike hit a hospital in war-torn Yemen on Monday afternoon.
The attack in Abas comes less than 48 hours after MSF said a coalition air strike on a Koranic school in Saada’s Haydan district had killed 10 children.
The coalition launched the bombing campaign in March a year ago after Shi’ite Huthi rebels seized large parts of Yemen.
The reported attacks come after the breakdown of months of UN-sponsored talks in Kuwait aimed at finding a political solution to a war that has devastated Yemen since its outbreak last March. There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia on Monday’s strike.
“They were deceiving people by this negotiation, to re-organise their force, re-supplying their forces and getting back to fighting”, Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri said.
Earlier this month, the JIAT issued recommendations on eight previous incidents, including suggesting compensation be paid in one case and for the coalition to make sure it communicate warnings to global organisations operating in an area that was being targeted.
Teresa Sancristóval, MSF desk manager for the Emergency Unit in Yemen, told media that: “This is the fourth attack against an MSF facility in less than 12 months”.
MSF said the Global Positioning System coordinates of the hospital “were repeatedly shared with all parties to the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition, and its location was well-known”.
The charity says more than 4,600 patients have been treated at the Abs hospital since July 2015, reports the BBC.
In addition to the loss of lives and health workers, she added, “the cessation of the hospital will further deprive access to essential health services among the conflict affected population”.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau also expressed concern with reports of the airstrike, saying the State Department was in contact with Saudi authorities and still gathering information. It raised the death toll to 14 on Tuesday after three more people died of their wounds. The coalition denied it had targeted the school, saying it bombed a training camp and that the rebels were using child soldiers.
The team has already investigated claims of attacks on a residential area, hospitals, markets, a wedding and World Food Programme (WFP) aid trucks.
The Sanaa-based civil aviation authority Tuesday said passenger flights to the airport remained suspended, affecting 7,632 Yemenis, including 3,700 stranded overseas.
“The attacks in the last nine days have been relentless, and what we feared most has been tragically confirmed: that whenever peace talks collapse, innocent children, men and women get killed”, said NRC Country Director in Yemen, Syma Jamil.
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This post was syndicated from The Guardian NigeriaThe Guardian Nigeria.
