Initial reports said at least 40 people were killed in the incident, many of them women and children.
Advertisement
Tehran accuses Riyadh of serious safety lapses and has questioned its fitness to continue organizing the annual Muslim pilgrimage. Official United Nations figures illustrate that nearly 4,900 people have been killed since Saudi forces began their bombardment of Yemen.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the bombing and “stated that there is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen“.
Residents said yesterday that two missiles tore through tents in the Red Sea village of Al-Wahijah, near the port of Al-Mokha, where a wedding reception was being held.
This attack marks the deadliest day in the war in Yemen, which has now gone on for over half a year. It called on the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s government to allow “independent and impartial” investigations.
Initially reported as a “mistaken” air strike by the Saudi-led coalition, the USA backed group is now denying its role in the civilian tragedy as a coalition spokesperson “suggested local militias may have been responsible” for targeting the party, which included many women and children. They fly the flag of pre-unification South Yemen and declare enmity with the north. At one such checkpoint, leading to the Jazirat Al-Omal district near the airport where intense fighting left almost every building a wreck, the three scrawny armed men in torn clothes who manned it came from Abyan, another southern region.
Sanaa-based political analyst, Hisham Omeisy, also pointed the finger at the Saudi-led forces, saying, the Houthis dont have fighter jets..
Officials from the Saudi-led coalition could not immediately be reached for comment.
The office of the United Nations human rights chief says 151 civilians have been killed in fighting in Yemen over two weeks in September, taking the civilian death toll to 2,355 over the last six months.
A Saudi official told the European Parliament that his country was abiding by global law in its military campaign. The American military is providing aerial refueling so that Saudi jets can carry out their operations while USA drones are providing real-time video of targets. Saudi Arabia and its regional allies aim at ousting the rebels, who they say are aided by Iran, and restoring the Saudi-allied Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Advertisement
A ship carrying illicit arms believed to be from Iran was intercepted last week off the southern Arabian Peninsula by a member of a U.S.-backed naval coalition and was not registered with any country, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday.
