ADEN: An air strike killed at least 45 people at a camp for displaced people in north Yemen yesterday, humanitarian workers said, in an attack which apparently targeted nearby Houthi fighters who are battling President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi.
Yemen’s state news agency Saba, which is under the control of the Houthis, said the camp at Haradh was hit by Saudi planes. It said the dead included women and children, and showed the bodies of five children laid out on a blood-streaked floor.
A Saudi military spokesman said the kingdom was seeking clarification on the incident.
“It could have been that the fighter jets replied to fire, and we cannot confirm that it was a refugee camp,” Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said. “We will ask the Yemeni official agencies to confirm that,” he told reporters.
The International Organisation for Migration, which initially reported 45 deaths, said 40 people were killed and 200 wounded — dozens of them severely hurt.
A humanitarian worker said earlier that the strike hit a truck of Houthi militiamen at the gate to the Mazraq camp, near Haradh, killing residents, guards and fighters.
The medical aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres said at least 34 wounded people were brought to a hospital in Haradh which it supports. Another 29 were dead on arrival. “People in Al Mazraq camp have been living in very harsh conditions...and now they have suffered the consequences of an air strike on the camp,” said Pablo Marco, MSF operational manager for Yemen.
Mazraq, in the province of Hajja next to the Saudi border, is a cluster of camps that are home to thousands of Yemenis displaced by over a decade of wars between the Houthis and the Yemeni state, as well as East African migrants.
The fighting has brought civil war to the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which was already sliding into chaos with a growing southern secessionist movement and a covert US drone campaign — now stalled —against Al Qaeda in the east.
The growing power of the Houthis, part of a Shia minority that makes up about a third of the population, also means Yemen has become the latest stage for Saudi Arabia’s power struggle with Iran.
The two regional rivals support opposing sides in Syria’s civil war and in neighbouring Lebanon. Tehran also supports and arms Shia militias in Iraq, although it denies Riyadh’s accusations that it supports Yemen’s Houthis militarily. In the capital Sana’a, controlled by the Houthis, jets struck around the presidential palace overnight and made more raids throughout the day. Most of the air strikes, launched on Thursday, have taken place so far only at night.
In the south, Houthi fighters closed in on the port city of Aden, the last major stronghold of Hadi supporters, and residents said Egyptian warships shelled a column of Houthis advancing along the coastal road. It was the first known report of naval forces taking part in the conflict.
A Reuters reporter heard heavy explosions and saw a thick column of black smoke rising from the area about 15 km northeast of Aden and witnesses reported at least one plane flying nearby.
In a cabinet statement, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman of Saudi Arabia said his country was open to a meeting of all Yemeni political parties willing to preserve Yemen’s security, under the auspices of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, most of which are part of Riyadh’s anti-Houthi coalition.
Reuters
Ankara: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday insisted he was still planning to visit Iran next week, despite a war-of-words with the Islamic republic triggered by the Yemen crisis and his accusations Tehran was seeking domination of the region.
Majority Sunni Muslim Turkey has said it supports the Saudi-led operation against Iran-allied Houthi Shia rebels in Yemen to restore order in the country.
Meanwhile, Iran announced yesterday it had “invited” the Turkish envoy to the foreign ministry for an explanation after Erdogan said last week that Tehran’s bid for domination of the region could no longer be tolerated.
“We are keeping the programme of our visit (to Iran) but we are watching developments in Yemen,” Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul airport before heading on a visit to Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania.afp
