Saudi-Led Airstrikes Pound Yemeni Capital

Date: 20 January 2019 - 21:38

News ID: ۶۲۲۴۶

SANAA (Dispatches) – The Saudi-led Arab coalition has conducted a series of airstrikes in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, local media report.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition claimed its warplanes attacked seven military facilities used for drone operations in Sanaa, which is held by rival Houthi fighters.
Medical workers and residents told Reuters at least two civilians were killed, and others injured, and that the raids also damaged homes.
Al-Masirah TV said on Sunday that the coalition had conducted 24 air strikes on Sanaa since Saturday evening, including four on the air base. It said a plastics factory was also hit, causing a large fire.
Footage showed a large crater next to the factory, and damaged homes nearby.
"The raids were very violent, the likes of which we have not seen for a year,” Sanaa resident Arwa Abdul Karim told Reuters. "The house shook so much we thought it would fall on our heads.”
Yemen’s Human Rights Ministry condemned the stepped-up attacks on the capital, saying the raids came at a time when the city was hosting many people, who have fled the Saudi-led strikes in other parts of the country.
It said the "escalation” was in violation of international human rights law, calling on the United Nations to take a position and condemn the bombings.
Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been defending the country against the Riyadh-led invaders, described the aerial attacks as a joint "U.S.-Saudi” act of aggression.
"The U.S. has directed and prepared for these operations in Sana'a and other areas,” said Ali al-Quhoom, a member of Ansarullah’s Political Bureau.
The coalition has killed tens of thousands in the Arab world’s poorest country, trying unsuccessfully to restore power to Yemen’s former Riyadh-allied government.
The U.S. has been lending generous arms and logistical support to the coalition, turning a deaf year to numerous calls by international rights groups to drop that policy.
This latest escalation could jeopardize the ongoing United Nations peace efforts that brought the two sides together in Sweden for the first time last year, where they reached an agreement on a truce in the lifeline port city of Hudaydah.

Yemenis inspect the damage at the Queen Arwa University following a Saudi airstrike in the capital, Sanaa.