Saudi-led coalition air raid kills 20 Yemeni civilians: residents

The attack hit a car transporting 20 passengers south of Taiz province, locals tell Reuters news agency.

Yemen
The stalemated war has rendered Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis [Naif Rahma/Reuters]

Twenty people have been killed in an air strike by a Saudi-led military coalition in southwestern Yemen, residents said.

The attack on Friday hit a car transporting 20 passengers in the south of Taiz province, locals told Reuters news agency.

Six bodies had been identified but the rest were charred beyond recognition, the residents added.

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A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said it would investigate the report, but declined to comment further.

“We take this report very seriously,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters.

The coalition intervened in Yemen‘s civil war in 2015 against Houthi rebels who overthrew the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The rebels control the capital, Sanaa.

Coalition air raids have repeatedly struck civilian targets while trying to target Houthi forces during the three-year war. The coalition says it does not target civilians. 

The stalemated war has rendered Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

ICRC says staff member killed

Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said a staff member was killed on Saturday in a shooting in Yemen.

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Yemeni security officials also said Hanna Lahoud, a Lebanese national, was killed in the southwestern province of Taiz when gunmen shot at a vehicle carrying ICRC staff members, according to The Associated Press news agency.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media, the agency added.

The Yemen war has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people, displaced more than two million and driven the country to the verge of famine, according to the United Nations.

Source: News Agencies

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