A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a prison run by Yemens Houthi rebels on Friday killing at least 70 detainees and wounding dozens a rebel minist
A Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Friday, killing at least 70 detainees and wounding dozens, a rebel minister said. The strike was part of a pounding aerial offensive that hours earlier knocked the Arab world’s poorest country off the internet. The intense campaign comes after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack that struck inside the capital of the United Arab Emirates earlier in the week. It marked a major escalation in the conflict, a brutal civil war in Yemen where the Saudi-led coalition, backed by the UAE, has battled the rebels since 2015. Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government which controls the country’s north, told The Associated Press in the capital, Sanaa, that 70 detainees were killed at the prison but that he expects the number to rise in the coming hours since many of the wounded were seriously hurt. Earlier Friday, a Saudi airstrike in the port city of Hodeida – later confirmed by satellite photos analyzed by the AP – hit a telecommunication center that’s key to Yemen’s connection to the internet. Airstrikes also hit near Sanaa, held by the Houthis since late 2014. The escalation was the most intense since the 2018 fighting for Hodeida and comes after a year of U.S. and U.N. efforts failed to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. Basheer Omar, an International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson in Yemen, said rescuers continued to go through the rebel-run prison site in the northern city of Saada. The Red Cross had moved some of the wounded to facilities elsewhere, he said. He had no breakdown for how many were killed and how many were wounded. Doctors Without Borders in a separate statement put the number of wounded alone at ‘around 200’ people. ‘From what I hear from my colleague in Saada, there are many bodies still at the scene of the airstrike, many missing people,’ said Ahmed Mahat, the organization’s head of mission in Yemen. The organization Save the Children earlier said over 60 were killed in Saada, saying the prison holds detained migrants. ‘Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens, is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen,’ said Gillian Moyes, Save the Children’s director in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition did not confirm the Saada attack; it has frequently struck civilian locations during the war, now in its eight year.
