“Immediately, and as soon as the announcement from Doctors without Borders and from his excellency the United Nations secretary-general reached us, the team began its investigation as part of its responsibility and without waiting for instructions from anyone”, Mansour Ahmed al-Mansour told Reuters.
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Saudi Arabia said the school it targeted was a “training camp” for child soldiers, suggesting it was not the coalition’s responsibility that children were killed.
The attack comes just a day after the Saudi-led coalition attacked a Doctors Without Border-run hospital in Yemen’s northern Hajja province, killing at least 11 people and wounding 13.
Saudi Ekhbariyah television said projectiles fired by the Iran-allied Houthis landed at an industrial area in the southern city of Najran, close to the Yemeni border, in one of the deadliest attacks on Saudi Arabia. Continuing cross-border strikes by Arab coalition forces and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in northern Yemen have killed almost 50 people since Saturday. A spokesman for the coalition did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The coalition of Arab states intervened in the country after Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and ejected the former government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Mansour Hadi.
He reminded all parties “of the utmost necessity to protect civilians and to respect their obligations under worldwide humanitarian law”. This was followed by condemnation of the reported coalition airstrike Monday on a rural hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Hajjah, in which he noted that the parties to the conflict in Yemen have damaged or destroyed over 70 health centres, including three other MSF-supported facilities.
The Saudi led military coalition continues to bombard Yemen from the air.
“This investigation will be independent and will follow global standards”.
The rebels formed the so-called Supreme Political Council late last month, in a move that put an end to peace talks in Kuwait.
The coalition resumed raids on Sanaa on August 9, nearly three days after the talks were suspended, with one strike reportedly hitting a food factory, killing 14 people.
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Two were carrying World Food Programme (WFP) and Red Cross employees, while a Russian plane brought in humanitarian aid, Khalid al-Shayef said.
