Sana’a, Dozens of people were killed and injured as an airstrike hit buses carrying children in northern Yemen on Thursday, according to the Yemeni branch of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC).
The school buses was targeted as they were was passing through a market in the rebel-held province of Saada, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.
“Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10. @ICRC_ye sending additional supplies to hospitals to cope with the influx,” Johannes Bruwer, the head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, wrote on Twitter.
The humanitarian organization said that the victims had been taken to one of the hospitals it supports in Sa’ada, located 230 kilometres to the north of the capital.
A spokesman for the Health Ministry of the Houthi rebel-controlled government, Yusef al-Hadari, said that the children were on their way to an educational summer camp organized by the Ministry for Islamic Affairs and that three buses had been targeted in the bombing.
Houthi media aired gruesome footage appearing to show the bodies of children. Other footage showed a young boy being escorted to a hospital, with blood all over his face.
CNN quoted witnesses as saying that the attack could be heard from neighbouring districts.
A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been carrying out airstrikes since 2015 against Houthi positions — causing thousands of civilian deaths in the process, according to war monitors — in an attempt to restore the internationally-recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The UN, the EU and numerous humanitarian organizations warned that the consequences of the Saudi-led intervention, such as a famine threatening almost 18 million people or a cholera outbreak infecting hundreds of thousands, reached the level of a humanitarian “catastrophe”.
