SANA’A: An explosive shell hit a funeral gathering attended by southern separatists in Yemen, killing 15 people, including children, yesterday, witnesses and medical sources said.
Witnesses said the shell had been fired by a tank and blamed the army. One local army officer, who asked not to be named, said a military outpost had fired the shell by mistake, and the man in charge was being investigated - though there was no immediate comment from the defence ministry in Sana’a. Around 40 people were also wounded in the strike on a tent where mourners had come to pay their respects to the family of a southern separatist who died earlier in the week, the sources said. The tent had been set up inside a school in the southern province of Al Dhalea by members of the Al Herak Al Janoubi, a coalition of groups aiming to set up an independent state in the region.
President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi set up a committee to investigate the incident, state news agency Saba reported, without going into further details. Yemen is struggling to restore state authority after mass unrest ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh a year ago. Elsewhere, two Islamist militants were killed in an air strike in east Yemen, residents and a local official said.
reuters
