At least 35 dead as air strike hits hotel in Yemen
At least 35 people were killed in an air strike that hit a small hotel north of the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Wednesday, the armed Houthi movement said.
UPDATE: Local medic confirmed 35 fatalities in the Yemeni attack.
Al Jazeera television said dozens of people were killed and wounded in the attack in the Arhab area.
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A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, which is fighting the Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen, was not available for comment. Reuters was not immediately able to independently confirm the reports.
The Houthis, who control Sanaa and northern Yemen, are fighting Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia and its allies in a civil war.
“More than 30 martyrs in air strike on small hotel in Arhab,” Houthi-run television station Almaseera said in a newsflash.
Earlier this month, a senior United Nations official condemned recent reported airstrikes in Yemen, including on a house containing children, saying they showed “disregard” for civilians’ safety.
The Saudi-led coalition denied targeting the family home after a health official said nine civilians were killed in an air strike.
A report by international aid agencies last week said Yemen suffered more airstrikes in the first half of this year than in the whole of 2016, increasing the number of civilian deaths and forcing more people to flee their homes.
The number of airstrikes in the first six months of 2017 totalled 5,676, according to the report by the Protection Cluster in Yemen, which is led by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), up from 3,936 for all 2016.
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The report did not identify any party as being responsible for the airstrikes but the Saudi-led coalition has controlled Yemeni airspace since the war began in March 2015. U.S. forces have also conducted occasional airstrikes or raids using drones.
The United Nations has put the death toll since the war began in March 2015 at more than
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