United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the attack, reportedly an airstrike, on a school in northern Yemen that killed at least 10 children and injured many more over the weekend. Yemeni security and medical officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media, say the strike killed and wounded some 20 of the hospital’s staff and patients.
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“Once again, today we witness the tragic consequences of the bombing of a hospital”, said Teresa Sancristóval, Doctors Without Borders emergency program manager for Yemen.
Members of Congress are pushing to block the sale of $1.15 billion worth of military equipment to Saudi Arabia as reports of civilian casualties continue to emerge from Yemen following strikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition.
Yemen’s parliament has held its first session since the outbreak of conflict in the Arab country nearly two years ago, in a move to challenge the Saudi-backed resigned government.
Hundreds of thousands of people from Yemen live and work in Saudi Arabia to support families in their impoverished homeland.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Twitter that at least ten school children have been left dead and 28 injured in Yemen’s Saada province.
It is made up of 10 senior officials, who dominate the decision making in the country, and was declared in a ceremony in the presidential palace in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa. About 60 percent of the children killed in Yemen were by airstrikes, according to the United Nations.
The UN says that more than 6,400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Yemen since fighting escalated in March a year ago.
Days after the Obama administration approved a major arms sale agreement to Saudi Arabia, Republican senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is considering blocking the move, citing objections to the country’s human rights record and a possible regional arms race.
“There’s no active ground fighting near area attacked but Sa’ada is Houthi’s home governorate and stronghold, and has been relentlessly and aerially bombarded by the Saudi-led coalition since the beginning of the war in March of 2015”, Mr al-Omeisy said. “We would note that the Saudi committee that was designated to look into civilian casualties. did share its findings with the UN”.
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They came a week after the collapse of UN-brokered peace talks between the internationally recognized government in exile and rebels. The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, estimated the death toll of the airstrikes at 119, including 22 children.
