Moa’ath Al Yaseri, a resistance leader in Taez city, told The National that coordinated air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition, in which the UAE is playing a leading role, had helped them to advance on several fronts of Taez, including Dhubab district on the Red Sea coast.
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“At least 19 hospitals have been partially destroyed in Yemen over the last six months, so this one, our hospital in Haydan, is number 20 which is very significant”. Several homes were destroyed in the airstrikes and civilian casualties were reported.
This bombing comes in the wake of the continued fallout over Americans bombing a MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan; an air raid that left a few 30 people dead and scores injured.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday (Oct 27) denounced strikes that he said were conducted by Saudi-led warplanes on a hospital in Yemen operated by worldwide charity Doctors Without Borders. One person was “slightly injured” during the evacuation.
The coalition dropped weapons in the southwestern city of Taiz, Yemen’s third largest which has become a major front in the coalition’s northward push towards the capital.
Médecins Sans Frontières have condemned a Saudi air strike that destroyed a hospital and deprived approximately 200,000 people of vital medical care in a northern province of war-torn Yemen.
In May, Human Rights Watch accused the Saudi-led coalition of having used cluster bombs in Saada governorate.
Of the latest attack, Boucenine said it was simply “unacceptable”.
“It is unacceptable that the bombing of a hospital and the killing of staff and patients can be dismissed as collateral damage or brushed aside as a mistake”, MSF global President Dr. Joanne Liu recently said at a press conference.
Hundreds of former Colombian nationals are fighting alongside Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen, according to reports Sunday. President Obama has apologized for that attack, but MSF has pushed back, calling for an independent investigation.
“We call on all parties to the conflict to respect and protect medical personnel and units and take every precaution to protect civilians caught up in the conflict”.
Hospitals and other medical facilities are civilian objects that have special protections under the laws of war.
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More than 4,500 people have been killed in Yemen since the conflict began, which prompted the United Nations to label it a “humanitarian crisis” and worldwide aid organizations like MSF to respond.
