Share

Yemen: Parliament convenes to defy Saudi-backed exiled government

At least 10 children were killed and 21 injured in northern Yemen on Saturday, aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said, as the country’s parliament convened for the first time in nearly two years.

Advertisement

Shaher added that MSF had received the children at a field hospital near the school before they were transferred to a public hospital.

At least 10 children have been killed and 28 others injured in an airstrike in Yemen, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, the residents said two civilians were killed and four others wounded when a warplane bombed a vehicle carrying explosives. At least nine people were killed in a Saudi-led coalition bombardment on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa earlier this month.

Locals and officials say the attack was carried out by the US -backed, Saudi-led coalition, which has been conducting a brutal bombing campaign in Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, since March 2015.

The attack took place on Saturday. A similar strike occurred in April 2015 when Saudi aircraft attacked a crowded marketplace in Mastaba, a village that lies in Yemen’s northern Hajjah governorate.

Dozens, mostly civilians, have been killed across the country by the coalition, which dramatically stepped up its air assault last week after five months of relative calm.

Tens of thousands of children have been directly affected with many children undergoing chronic malnutrition.

Around 100 members of the Saudi forces and civilians have been killed inside the kingdom’s borders since the coalition campaign began.

The airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition that hit a hospital in Yemen on Monday can be considered a war crime, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Program Deputy Director said in a statement. Locals blamed the assault on Saudi Arabia, though Riyadh strongly denied it.

“The site that was bombed.is a major training camp for militia”, he told AFP.

Activists and some lawmakers have urged the United States and other Western powers to stop supplying billions of dollars of fighter jets, bombs and other weaponry to Saudi Arabia.

Great Britain has been linked to arms supply to the Gulf state, according to UK’s campaign against Arms Trade (CAAT).

Advertisement

In June, Saudi Arabia reacted angrily to a decision to blacklist the coalition after a United Nations report found the Arab alliance responsible for more than half of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen past year.

U.S.-backed Saudi coalition bombs Yemen school killing 10 children wounding 28