Air strikes on rebel-run prison kill over 100

SANAA (AP):

Yemeni medics said on Monday that they pulled dozens of bodies from the rubble of a Houthi rebel-run detention centre that was hit a day earlier by Saudi-led coalition air strikes, killing over 100 people and wounding dozens.

It was the deadliest such attack so far this year in a stalemated four-year war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine, and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Saudi-led coalition, which has fought the Iran-backed Houthis since 2015, has faced international criticism for air strikes that have hit schools, hospitals, and wedding parties, killing thousands of civilians.

By the early afternoon, 86 bodies had been pulled from the ruins of a building complex in southwestern Dhamar province, originally a college but converted by the Houthi rebels to a detention centre, Yemen’s Red Crescent said.

There were around 170 detainees at the facility when the air strikes hit on Sunday. The International Committee for the Red Cross said 40 wounded were being treated for injuries while the rest were presumed dead, and that it would likely take days to recover all the bodies. The facility was part of the local community college before the Houthis turned it into a detention centre, one of dozens in areas under their control.

The Houthis said that the detainees were captured forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government and that both the Red Cross and the coalition knew that detainees were being held there.

The Red Cross, which inspects detention centres as part of its global mission, said Sunday that it had previously visited detainees at the site.

Col Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said in a televised press conference Monday that it had bombed a “legitimate military target” and blamed the Houthis for using the former college as a detention centre for Yemenis who were forcibly disappeared.

He said that the Red Cross never told the coalition that there were detainees at the site, which he said was not on a UN-coordinated no-strike list. The UN provides the coalition with coordinates for locations such as hospitals, schools, and official prisons to ensure they are not hit by air strikes.

“The only known prion (in the area) is located 10 kilometres (six miles) north of the targeted site,” he said.