At least 45 civilians, including women and children, have been killed by Saudi-led airstrikes in three separate incidents over the past four days, the U.N. said yesterday.
According to the U.N., a Saudi-led Coalition airstrike killed all the passengers in a civilian vehicle travelling in the Mawza district of the Taiz governorate, and a total of 21 civilians, including five children, were killed in the most recent attack on Friday. On Sunday, during a wedding ceremony in the Bani Qayis district of the northern province of Hajja, two airstrikes killed at least 19 civilians and injured some 50 others, of whom more than half were children. The coalition airstrike also hit a civilian house, killing all five members of a family, a father, mother, and three children in Hajja.
"We note that the members of the coalition are conducting an after-action review of the attack on the wedding party, but urge them to fully investigate all these latest deadly attacks independently, thoroughly and transparently," Liz Throssell, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a press conference at the U.N. in Geneva yesterday, as reported by Anadolu Agency (AA). According to the U.N., a total of more than 6,300 civilians have been killed, and 9,900 injured since the start of the Yemeni conflict in March 2015. According to the independent monitor the Yemen Data Project, a third of the 16,847 airstrikes since the war started have hit non-military targets. Over the past three years, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed and tens of thousands wounded, while over 3 million people have been displaced because of the fighting. U.N. officials and rights groups have accused the coalition of committing war crimes and of being responsible for most of the killings. Airstrikes have hit weddings, busy markets, hospitals and schools.
