Yemen MSF hospital hit by Arab coalition air strikes

The charity’s hospital in Saada’s Haydan district served 200,000 people and was the only-life saving facility in the region, receiving 150 emergency cases a week. There are sent every week to the coalition operations room, last time the 24th of October.

It is the second time this month that an MSF facility has been hit in a conflict zone.

Luther said the consecutive bombing runs showed the medical facility was deliberately targeted, which could amount to a war crime.

“Fuel shortages and lack of medical supplies are part of the reasons behind hospitals closures”.

Médecins Sans Frontières has rejected claims by Saudi Arabia that the Riyadh-led military coalition was not responsible for the bombing of a civilian hospital run by the humanitarian group in Yemen this week. The staff evacuated the hospital between strikes. At least 5,600 people have been killed, but the alliance has made little headway toward restoring Yemen’s exiled government to the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa.

The strikes wounded several people inside the hospital, Ali Mughli, the director of the hospital told Yemen’s state news agency Saba, in quotes carried by Reuters.

It was not immediately possible to confirm that report.

The air strikes have also hit non-military targets, including markets.

Coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said in an email that coalition jets had been in action over Saada governorate.

“It’s completely destroyed”, he said. “More children in Yemen may well die from a lack of medicines and healthcare than from bullets and bombs”, its executive director Anthony Lake said in a statement.

“The issue of who controls the skies and who has the air power, I think, is clear for many people to see”, Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. In a statement from his spokesperson, he emphasized that hospitals and medical personnel are explicitly protected under worldwide humanitarian law, and he called for a quick and impartial investigation.

Amnesty global condemned the hit on the clinic and called for an immediate, independent investigation.

Earlier this month Spanish-language media reported that 800 Colombian mercenaries would arrive in the southern port city of Aden at the end of this month, joining troops from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Sudan.

At a press conference at the Saudi mission to the United Nations shortly after noon on Wednesday, the ambassador insisted that his comments the day before were “either misquoted” or “taken out of context”.