An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on the old quarter of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a killed five people on Friday and destroyed three houses in the UNESCO-listed heritage site.
The air strike hit the Qassimi neighborhood, which boasts thousands of houses built before the 11th century, an AFP journalist reported.
Although it did not explode, it still destroyed three three-storey houses and killed five residents, including a woman and a child, medics and witnesses said.
The old city has already suffered some damage from the US-led Saudi aggression’s air strikes on nearby targets, including the Defense Ministry, prompting a protest from UNESCO in May.
Sanaa’s old city has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years and was a major center for the propagation of Islam, boasting over 100 mosques, 14 public baths and more than 6,000 houses built before the 11th century.
It was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1986.
The US-led Saudi military aggression against Yemen started on March 26 -- without a UN mandate -- in a bid to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement, and to restore power to Yemen’s fugitive former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is a close ally of Saudi Arabia.
