A Saudi-led coalition air strike hit a hospital in Yemen’s northern Hajja province on Monday, residents and local officials said, killing at least seven people and wounding 13.
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Yemen’s conflict pits an internationally-recognized government backed by a Saudi-led coalition against the Shiite rebels, who captured the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014.
Saudi Arabia suffered its worst civilian death toll on Tuesday in cross-border shelling from Yemen as an anti-rebel coalition it leads launched an investigation into a deadly strike on a hospital.
A Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital has been hit by a Saudi coalition airstrike in the province of Hajjah in the north of Yemen, the medical aid organisation says.
The coalition resumed airstrikes on Sanaa on August 9, nearly three days after negotiations in Kuwait were suspended, with one raid reported to have hit a food factory in the city during working hours, killing 14 people.
Alessandra Vellucci from the United Nations said: “The Secretary General notes that the parties to the conflict in Yemen have damaged or destroyed over 70 health centres including three other MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres)-supported facilities”.
This is not the first time a Doctors Without Borders facility has been targeted in an air strike.
The coalition had announced earlier it would allow humanitarian flights into Sanaa’s worldwide airport from Monday, after a closure of several days as hostilities flared around the rebel-held capital.
This was a horrific attack killing sick and injured people and the medical staff desperately trying to help them. The Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen since March 2015. London-based watchdog Amnesty International described the hospital’s bombardment as “a deplorable act that has cost civilian lives, including medical staff”.
The charity claims to have always clearly communicated the Global Positioning System coordinates of the facilities it supports to the Saudi coalition, and demands that an independent investigation be carried out into the attacks.
Saudi Arabian media said Saturday that a senior Houthi leader was killed in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Saada.
The strike on Monday was the latest in an increasing number of attacks targeting civilian areas in the war torn country of Yemen, with similar airstrikes targeting a food factory and a school in the course of the last week.
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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the airstrike and said the warring sides in Yemen have damaged or destroyed more than 70 health centers in their two-year conflict.
