Two Yemeni Civilians Killed in Latest Saudi-Led Airstrikes
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Warplanes belonging to the Saudi-led coalition carried out a fresh wave of airstrikes against various areas across Yemen, killing at least two civilians, reports said.
Fighter jets of the Riyadh-led coalition struck a medical facility under construction in the al-Ma’yanah district of the capital province of Sana’a on Wednesday morning, leaving two citizens dead and injured as many, the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported.
Saudi-led warplanes also targeted an area near a plastic factory in the al-Thawra district of the province, but there were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.
The development came hours after Saudi-led fighter jets conducted more than a dozen aerial assaults against al-Jubah and Sirwah districts in Yemen’s central province of Ma’rib, but no reports about possible casualties were quickly available.
On Tuesday evening, seven civilians, including an African refugee, suffered grave injuries when Saudi border guards indiscriminately fired shots at popular outdoor markets and residential buildings in Raqou area of the Monabbih district in the northwestern Yemeni province of Sa’ada.
Meanwhile, a new report has predicted that the death toll from Yemen’s war will reach 377,000 by the end of the current year, including those killed as a result of indirect and direct causes.
In a report published on Tuesday, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimated that 70 percent of those killed would be children under the age of five.
It found that 60 percent of deaths would have been the result of indirect causes, such as hunger and preventable diseases, with the remainder a result of direct causes like front-line combat and air raids.
“In the case of Yemen, we believe that the number of people who have actually died as a consequence on conflict exceeds the numbers who died in battlefield,” UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said.
Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and other key Western powers, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing fugitive former president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi’s government back to power and crushing the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.
Having failed to reach its professed goals, the war has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and displaced millions more. It has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and spread famine and infectious diseases there.
Despite heavily-armed Saudi Arabia’s continuous bombardment of the impoverished country, Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees have grown steadily in strength against the Saudi invaders and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.