And the Saudi civil defence said six foreign workers at a water-bottling plant in Najran – three Indians, two Bangladeshis and a Nepali – were wounded when a factory was hit in a rebel bombardment from across the border.
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The charity said the Global Positioning System co-ordinates of the hospital were repeatedly shared with all parties involved in the conflict.
But Saturday’s attack was the latest airstrike to hit Yemen since UN-backed peace talks collapsed a week ago between the Western- and Saudi-backed government of Yemen and Shiite Houthi rebels, who have seized the capital, Sanaa, and other regions. Agence France-Presse reports that coalition spokesman Gen. Ahmad Assiri said that the site bombed was “a major training camp for militia”, adding that the death toll as recorded by MSF “confirms the Al Houthi practice of recruiting and subjecting children to terror”.
In June, Saudi Arabia reacted angrily to a decision to blacklist the coalition after a United Nations report found the Arab alliance responsible for more than half of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen a year ago.
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.
Shocking images showed children, dead and injuries, after an airstrike targeted on a religious school in Saada, Yemen. The World Health Organization says almost 1,000 people have been killed worldwide in attacks on medical facilities in conflicts over the past two years in violation of humanitarian norms.
In October previous year, more than 40 staff and patients were killed in a USA gunship raid on one of the charity’s hospitals in Afghanistan. The U.S. government has apologized for the attack and paid compensation to survivors and the families of those killed. “Either intentional or a result of a negligence, this is unacceptable”.
But he said he had no specific comment on the airstrikes Saturday.
“Strikes on humanitarian facilities including hospitals are particularly concerning”, she said. “Continued military actions only prolong the suffering of the Yemeni people”.
The hospital is run by the volunteer medical aid group Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF.
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“Even if the fighting ended soon, whoever assumes control over the shattered country will face an AQAP with far more resources and recruits than the AQAP against which previous Yemeni governments have struggled”, said a June intelligence assessment put out by the Soufan Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy based in NY.
