Saudi Arabia confirmed the regime's airstrike has killed civilians in Yemeni capital on 25 august.
Spokesman of Saudi-led coalition, that launched a bloody aggression on neighboring Yemen in 2015, said the carnage of at least 12 civilians in Sanaa was an “unintentional and accidental incident” that resulted in “collateral damage”.
Colonel Turki al-Maliki claimed the airstrike was meant to hit a target belonging to Ansarullah movement and the coalition “was not intentionally targeting” the residential buildings that were eventually hit in the strike.
The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly hit civilian targets in Yemen resulting to killing of thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Saudis' 29-month aggression on most impoverished Arab nation has so far claimed lives of over 13,000 Yemenis and has displaced millions more.
According to Reuters, as the result of Saudi airstrike on 25 August all members of a Yemeni family except for a four-year-old girl were killed.
Eight of Buthaina Muhammad Mansour's family members, including her parents, five siblings and uncle, were killed when a Saudi airstrike razed their home to the ground in Sanaa.
Buthaina suffered concussion and skull fractures, however doctors think She will pull through.
A man carries Buthaina Muhammad Mansour, believed to be four or five, rescued from the site of a Saudi-led air strike that killed eight of her family members in Sanaa, Yemen August 25, 2017.
Lying disoriented in her hospital bed on Saturday, Buthaina called out for her uncle, Mounir, who was among those killed in the attack.
Another uncle, Saleh Muhammad Saad, told Reuters Mounir had rushed to the family’s house when Buthaina’s father called him at 2 am to say war planes were bombing their neighborhood in Sanaa’s Faj Attan district. He never returned.
By the time Saleh got to the house, it was a ruin of broken concrete blocks and wooden planks. Hearing survivors groaning from beneath the rubble, he battled to free them.
“I could hear the shouts of one of their neighbors from under the rubble, and tried to remove the rubble from on top of (Buthaina’s father) and his wife, but I couldn’t. They died,” he said.
“We lifted the rubble and saw first her brother Ammar, who was three, and her four sisters, all of them dead. I paused a little and just screamed out from the pain. But I pulled myself together, got back there and then heard Buthaina calling.”
He said her survival had given him some solace as he mourned the rest of the family.
"Her sister Raghad always used to come up and hug me and kiss me when I visited. I used to say to her, 'Come on, that's enough.' And she would say 'Oh no it isn't!' and just keep hugging and kissing."
The incident took place just two days after the coalition hit a hotel located in the Yemeni capital. That airstrike also killed dozens of people. The attack on the hotel was condemned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which said the Saudi-led coalition was responsible for protecting civilians in Yemen.
The coalition actions were also condemned by many human rights organizations. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Middle East research director, called on the UN “to look at the evidence” and take action against the Saudis, adding that “schools and hospitals… lie in ruins, hundreds of young lives [were] lost to reckless air strikes,” as reported by AFP.
The International Committee of the Red Cross condemned Friday’s airstrike, calling it “outrageous.”
"Eight of the victims were members of the same family, including five children between three and 10 years old," said the deputy head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, Carlos Morazzani.
"Such loss of civilian life is outrageous and runs counter to the basic tenets of the law of armed conflict," he added, as cited by AFP.
The UN also blamed coalition forcarrying out an attack on the Yemeni southwestern Taez province that killed 20 people, including children. "In the week from August 17 to August 24, 58 civilians have been killed, including 42 by the Saudi-led coalition," the UN OHCHR spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
Upsurge in Yemen Cholera Deaths
At least 2,018 people have been killed by a cholera epidemic in Yemen amid ongoing Saudi bombardments since late April, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Saturday.
In a statement, the WHO said 565,041-suspected cases of cholera have been recorded in the country since April 27.
According to the WHO statement, the recorded suspected cases were in 22 out of 23 provinces.
The UN agency said the highest number of fatalities -- 382 cases -- was recorded in the northwestern Hajjah province, while in western Yemen’s Hudaida province only around 70,000 suspected cases were recorded.
Saudi-led airstrikes and a blockade on fuel and other supplies have left civilians in many areas across Yemen vulnerable to cholera, and less able to get antibiotics and other life-saving help than those in other parts of the Arab world's poorest nation.
The Norwegian Refugee Council and other charities have urged the Saudi-led coalition, which controls Yemen's airspace, to permit flights to the country's main airport in the capital Sanaa, to receive aid and allow sick and injured Yemenis to fly abroad for treatment. The Saudi regime and its allies have rejected this request.
The Saudi-led coalition started its brutal aggression on Yemen on 27 March 2015 to oust the popular Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who resigned as president and fled to Riyadh. The Saudis have failed to achieve their stated objective and are now stuck in the Yemen quagmire while indiscriminately bombarding the impoverished stated on an almost daily basis.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), over 3 million people have fled their homes since the onset of the Yemen conflict, and more than 20 million throughout the country are in need of humanitarian assistance.
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/8283
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