Doctors Without Borders Evacuates Teams From Hospitals In North Yemen

MSF is one of handful of worldwide medical aid groups operating on the ground in Yemen where a 16-month civil war between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels has killed over 6,500 people and brought one of world’s poorest countries close to starvation.

“At no point did U.S. military personnel provide direct or implicit approval of target selection”.

The Saudi-led coalition did not comment on withdrawal but said that their relationship with the USA continues to bear a “strategic” character.

But Stump said the U.S. was “concerned by the threat to Saudi territory along its southern border with Yemen”.

News of the change comes as criticism mounts against the Saudi-led campaign and its US support following airstrikes that killed civilians.

In apparent response to the Houthi show of force, ambassadors from the G18 group of nations that has backed U.N. peace talks to end Yemen’s civil war issued a statement condemning “unconstitutional and unilateral actions in Sanaa”. Saudi Arabia is the number one exporter of radical Islamic extremism on the planet. And that is only a portion of the many hospitals and schools struck by coalition attacks, government forces and rebel groups.

Paris-based Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused the coalition of “indiscriminate bombings” and said it had lost confidence in the alliance’s ability to prevent fatal attacks on its premises.

The attack on Abs hospital is the fourth and deadliest on any MSF-supported facility during this war and there have been countless attacks on other health facilities and services all over Yemen.

On Thursday the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was withdrawing staff from six hospitals in north Yemen after a coalition air strike hit one of its buildings, killing 19 people.

Anonymous official United States sources told Reuters the withdrawl of advisors was not because of repeated criticism of the civilian death toll in Yemen.

The humanitarian organization assists the Yemeni population who are the victims of a war, which has escalated in the last two weeks after Saudi Arabia and its allies attacked positions of Houthi rebels of the Ansar Allah group and the military loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

At the time of the strike, the hospital was “full of patients recovering from surgery, in maternity, newborns and children in pediatrics”, MSF has said.

Saudi Arabia has been involved in air strikes, beheadings and mass execution in Yemen.

Those weapons include cluster bombs, banned by most countries because they are hard to target with precision and many small bomblets fail to explode, becoming de facto land-mines.

Intelligence is still being provided to the Saudis, the Fifth Fleet spokesman said.

The coalition has repeatedly said that it is upholding worldwide humanitarian law, which includes not deliberately targeting civilians and ensuring that the damage caused by attacks are proportionate.