ANSD : Eight dead in ‘shocking’ Yemen attack

TUE 26 - 11 - 2024

Date: Jan 28, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Eight dead in ‘shocking’ Yemen attack

SANAA: Eight civilians were killed and 30 others wounded in a “shocking” bomb attack against a center for displaced people in Yemen, the U.N. said Sunday. The bombing hit the center in the Haradh district in the northwestern province of Hajjah Saturday, according to the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Lisa Grande. She did not name the party behind the attack.

“Any attack on a civilian site is unconscionable and a clear violation of international humanitarian law,” Grande said in a statement.

“An attack like this cannot be justified - ever.”

The center is in an area under government control in Hajjah, but the Houthi rebels control other parts of the province.

The Iran-backed Houthis have battled a pro-government military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for control of the impoverished country for four years, triggering what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Both parties are accused of failing to protect civilians.

Saudi Arabia’s state-run King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) Saturday accused the rebels of the attack.

Grande said dozens of civilians have been killed in Hajjah over the past two months and hundreds of families displaced. More than 1 million people are food insecure in the province, the U.N. official said.

The World Health Organization says the war has killed an estimated 10,000 people since 2015, when Saudi Arabia and its allies joined the government’s fight against the rebels. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project put the number of civilians and combatants killed between 2016 and 2018 at 56,000.

Some 24 million Yemenis - more than three-quarters of the country’s population - are now dependent on some form of aid for survival, and the U.N. estimates more than 12 million are at risk of starvation.

More than 1.13 million Yemenis received emergency food aid in December and aid agencies aim to reach an additional 230,000 people in January. with AFP

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