Local Editor
The death toll of a suspected Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a family’s house in southern Yemen has been raised to 11, including four children from one family, security officials and witnesses said Wednesday.
The officials said that warplanes, thought to be Emirati, fired two missiles at the family’s house in the town of el-Mahala, in the southern province of Lahij. The house was flattened and only one child from the family survived the strike, they said.
A witness, Ahmed Hadash, said he heard explosions for 40 minutes while the warplanes were flying.
"The bodies were distorted and the human remains were everywhere," he said.
The governor of Lahij, Naser al-Khoubeigi, has called on the Yemeni regime and the coalition to conduct an investigation. He denied any communications between the authorities in Lahij and the coalition.
"We know nothing about the attack. The coalition conducts attacks without informing us. The responsibility of this operation is on those who provide the coalition with the wrong coordinates," he said.
Security officials claim that the Saudi-led coalition regularly conducts unreported strikes and has detained many people, claiming that they are members of al-Qaida or the local Islamic State group affiliate.
"They have their own prisons," one official said.
Thousands have been killed and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the offensive on Yemen in a bid to allegedly restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
