Saudi-Led Coalition Airstrikes Kill More Civilians in Yemen
The US-backed aggression force launched dozens of air raids on four provinces across the country yesterday.
Coalition warplanes targeted in two airstrikes a citizen's car in Shida border district of Sa'ada Province, according to Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, Press TV reported.
In a similar incident last Wednesday, a citizen’s car was hit in Kitaf district in the same province, killing three civilians.
Yemen's official Saba Net news agency said the coalition had for 78 times violated a ceasefire agreement in the strategic western province of Hudaydah and that its warplanes had waged 43 raids on four Yemeni provinces over the past 24 hours.
A military official in Yemen told Saba that the coalition launched a raid on the district of Haradh in the northern province of Hajjah, three raids on al-Zaher district in Sa'ada, five raids on Khab and al-Sha'af districts in the northern province of Jawf, and 34 raids on the Majzar district of Yemen's central province of Ma'rib.
The coalition claimed on April 8 that it was halting military strikes in support of the United Nations (UN)’s peace efforts and to avoid the further spread of the new coronavirus in Yemen. However, shortly after the announcement, coalition warplanes struck positions at several Yemeni regions.
Supported militarily by the United States, Britain, and other Western countries, Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The invaders have also enforced an all-out aerial, naval, and land blockade on the impoverished country.
The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.
More than half of Yemen’s hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or closed at a time when Yemenis are in desperate need of medical supplies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least 80 percent of the 28 million-strong population is also reliant on aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations has warned that Yemen could suffer one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world.
Yemeni authorities have reported 486 reported coronavirus cases and 113 deaths, but the World Health Organization believes numbers are much higher.
