Sat 22 January 2022:
The Saudi-led coalition has denied reports that it bombed a prison in Saada, Yemen’s northern city, while the UN has condemned the country’s deadly coalition air strikes.
Dozens of people were killed in a dawn bombing of a temporary detention center in Yemen’s northern city, according to a Houthi rebel official and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF).
An MSF spokesperson told the AFP news agency the death toll was at least 70 and that 138 others had been wounded.
The Saudi-led coalition denied it carried out the strike.
“The coalition will inform the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the facts and details,” the official SPA news agency said on Saturday, citing a coalition spokesman.
He said the target in Saada was not on no-targeting lists agreed upon with the OCHA, was not reported by the ICRC and did not meet the standards stipulated by the third Geneva Convention (Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War).
Al-Malki said the coalition would share with both agencies “the facts and details, as well as the media misinformation” by the Houthis about the facility.
After the Houthis launched unprecedented drone attacks on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a coalition member, the coalition has increased aerial bombing on what it claims are military targets linked to the Houthis over the last week.
The Yemeni group fighting the Saudi-led coalition has also been behind cross-border missile and drone attacks in Saudi Arabia.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition on Friday.
The UN chief reminded “all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law”.
Tensions have risen in recent weeks following the Houthi rebels’ expulsion from southern Shabwa province by the UAE-backed Giants Brigade, undermining their months-long campaign to take the key city of Marib further north.
The Houthis kidnapped a UAE-flagged ship in the Red Sea on January 3, claiming it was carrying weapons.
The UN has described the Saudi-led coalition’s 2015 intervention in Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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