Saada: Saudi-led air raid kills nine family members
Three children and six women killed while sleeping at family home near Saada, with more injured.
At least three women and six children from the same family have been killed in an air raid by the Saudi-led coalition on their home in northern Yemen, according to a local health official.
Dr Abdel-Ilah al-Azzi, the head of the local health department, said on Friday that three other people were also injured in the attack at dawn on the family home of Taha al-Dharafi in Mahda district on the southwestern outskirts of Saada city.
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“We are recording all the crimes of the enemy and we will not forget them,” he said. “All the criminals will be put on trial soon, God willing.”
A relative, who declined to be identified, said the attack happened while the family slept.
Their bodies were taken to the morgue while rescue workers continued to search for a missing woman in the rubble of the house.
Pictures from the scene showed the house completely destroyed by the attack. Residents who rushed to the scene were afraid to start rescue work while aircraft hovered overhead.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition did not respond to Reuters news agency’s request for a comment.
The coalition says it does not target civilians.
SABA, an official news agency controlled by the Houthi rebel group, said that a second air attack on a car carrying civilians killed at least three people and wounded seven.
READ MORE: Saudi coalition blocks fuel for UN aid planes to Yemen
Yemen has been torn apart by a war, in which the exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi is trying to roll back gains made by the Houthis, who control most of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
Saada, a Houthi stronghold, has been repeatedly hit by Saudi-led aerial bombardment since the coalition of Arab states joined the war in March 2015.
Previous civilian casualties
At least 25 Yemenis were killed in June when Saudi-led coalition aircraft attacked a market in the Saada province.
And in March, another coalition air raid killed 22 people and wounded dozens in a market in western Yemen near the Red Sea fishing town of Khoukha.
Khoukha and the nearby city of Hodeidah are controlled by the Houthis who overran Sanaa in 2014 and moved south to Aden in 2015, forcing Hadi and his administration to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The Yemen war has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced more than three million and ruined much of the impoverished country’s infrastructure.
In December, the coalition acknowledged it had made “limited use” of British-made cluster bombs, but said it had stopped using them.
Nearly half of Yemen’s 22 provinces are on the verge of famine, according to the UN World Food Programme.
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