At least 71 civilians were killed in Yemen in airstrikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition against Houthi rebels over a 48-hour period, Al Jazeera reported on Monday.
On Sunday, at least 48 civilians, including 11 children, were killed in 51 air strikes across the country, the Houthi-run Saba news agency reported. On Monday, at least 11 people, including three children, were killed in the Capital city of Sana’a. There were casualties from other parts of the region too.
Abdul Malek al-Fadhl, a pro-Houthi activist, said the coalition raids on Monday had targeted the home of Mohammed al-Raimi, a local Houthi leader in a residential neighbourhood to the west of Sana’a. An unidentified official at the hospital in Dhamar told the Turkish Anadolu Agency that the warplanes had also targeted a Houthi-run government building in the southwestern city of Dhamar.
Airstrikes by the coalition have killed at least 136 civilians since December 6, United Nations Human Rights Spokesperson Rupert Colville had said on December 19.
Yemen has been torn apart by a civil war since 2014 when the Houthis overran much of the country, including capital Sana’a, and deposed President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a military campaign to wrest back control of the country and capture back the territory under the control of the Houthis.
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