SANAA (Dispatches) -- At least 41 civilians were killed or wounded on Wednesday, the first day that Saudi airstrikes resumed around the capital of Yemen, a United Nations official said.
Estimates of casualties made by the authorities in Sanaa, were even higher, putting the toll at 60 dead from at least three airstrikes around the capital.
For more than two years, the Saudis have been waging a war on Yemen. Saudi officials have insisted their aircraft avoid civilian targets, but hospitals, schools and other civilian facilities have been struck by Saudi warplanes. Last October, Riyadh confirmed that one of its jets had accidentally bombed a wedding party in Sanaa, killing 100 people.
Because of the risk of civilian casualties, the Saudis have claimed they were refraining from airstrikes in and around the capital, but the attacks resumed on Wednesday without explanation. The last airstrikes in Sanaa were in June.
Most of the victims on Wednesday were seasonal agricultural workers staying in a hotel in the district of Arhab, about 20 miles north of Sana, a security official said. They were there for the harvesting of khat, the mildly narcotic plant to which a large percentage of Yemen’s population is addicted.
A security official at the Ministry of Interior in Sanaa said that bodies were still being recovered from the rubble. The SABA news agency said that 50 people were dead or injured at the hotel, and that 21 others had died in two other airstrikes on Wednesday.
The Saudi war on Yemen has already left more than 12,000 people dead, displaced two million more from their homes and caused severe food shortages, according to United Nations reports. A recent report by the World Health Organization said that a severe outbreak of cholera had infected half a million Yemenis, with more than 2,000 dead so far. That crisis has worsened as the attacks disrupted medical facilities and fresh water supplies, the agency said.
The international airport in Sanaa has been closed for a year now following repeated Saudi bombings, making it difficult for Yemenis to seek medical care outside the country.  
Saudi Arabia is waging an extensive air campaign against the Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, which together control much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa. The kingdom is trying to restore former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who has been residing in Riyadh since fled Yemen.
The airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals, and markets, killing thousands of civilians and prompting rights groups to accuse Saudi Arabia and its allies of war crimes. Activists have called upon Western countries, including the United States and Britain, to cease their military support for Riyadh, which both countries have ignored.
Saudi Arabia has recently stepped up airstrikes in and around Sanaa, targeting buildings.
The fighter jets on Wednesday targeted the two-story hotel. Footage of the area aired on al-Masirah TV showed bodies hanging out of a simple cinderblock building. Bystanders wrapped mangled corpses into blankets to try to carry them away.