At Least 11 Civilians Killed in Saudi Airstrike on Yemeni Capital

The incident occurred in the city’s eastern Sawan neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.

While some eyewitnesses said an aircraft had targeted a “metal workshop,” Youssef al-Hazzari, a spokesman for the Yemeni Ministry of Public Health and Population, said the strike actually was on a school close to a workshop.

At least 11 people, “mostly schoolgirls” were killed and at least 39 others were injured, he added.

The death toll might even be higher and stands at 13 dead and over 100 injured, AP reported, citing an unnamed official who described the incident merely as an “explosion.”

Last week, the Saudi-led coalition bombed a rural hospital in northwest Yemen that had been supported by the Save the Children charity. That attack killed eight people, including five children, and injured seven more. The coalition has a long record of bombing civilian targets in Yemen, including weddings, funerals, school buses and busy markets.

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia and some of its Arab allies, including the UAE, have been carrying out deadly airstrikes against the Houthi Ansarullah movement in an attempt to restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

According to a recent report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.

The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.

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