Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Monday 2 SepteMber 2019

Saudi-led airstrikes kill at least 100 in rebel-run prison

By AHMED AL-HAJ as denying the target was
SAMY MAGDY a prison. Local residents
Associated Press said family members arrest-
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The ed for being critical of the
Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthis were imprisoned in
in Yemen launched mul- the detention center. They
tiple airstrikes on Sunday said at least seven airstrikes
against a detention cen- hit the area.
ter operated by the Houthi Omat al-Salam al-Haj, a
rebels in the southwestern mother of a detainee, said
province of Dhamar, killing the center housed anti-
at least 100 people and Houthi political detainees
wounding dozens more, who were rounded up over
officials and the rebels’ suspicions of cooperating
health ministry said. with the coalition.
Franz Rauchenstein, the Former detainee Mansour
head of the Red Cross del- al-Zelai said the Houthis
egation in Yemen, suggest- were restoring weapons in
ed that the death toll could and close to the detention
be higher after visiting the center.
site of the attack, saying Houthi rebels have been
relatively few detainees using scores of sites as de-
survived. A Red Cross state- Rescue workers recover bodies from under the rubble of a Houthi detention center destroyed tention centers, includ-
ment said the detention by Saudi-led airstrikes, that killed at least 60 people and wounding several dozen according to ing schools, mosques, and
center held around 170 de- officials and the rebels’ health ministry, in Dhamar province, southwestern Yemen, Sunday, Sept. houses, filling them with
tainees — forty were being 1, 2019. thousands of political de-
treated for injuries, the rest Associated Press tainees to use later in pris-
were presumed dead. crisis. zem Saleh said while on a weapons. oner-swap deals.
“Witnessing this massive The attack comes as the stretcher in a local hospital. Youssef al-Hadhri, a spokes- The Associated Press doc-
damage, seeing the bod- Saudi-led coalition’s part- He said the Red Cross had man for the Houthi-run umented that many of
ies lying among the rubble, ners — chiefly the United visited the center two times Health Ministry, said at least these sites were rife with
was a real shock. Anger Arab Emirates and an array before the airstrike. seven airstrikes hit three torture and abuses includ-
and sadness were natural of Yemeni militias — are in- A line of over a dozen white buildings in the complex ing Dhamar’s community
reactions,” Rauchenstein creasingly at odds over the body bags were laid out in overnight. college.
said. war’s aims. The past weeks the rubble beside flattened The rebels’ Health Ministry Former detainees recalled
The attack was the dead- have seen heavy fighting buildings and crushed cars, said in a statement that torture and abuses in-
liest so far this year by the in Yemen’s south between while rescue workers dug more than 60 people were side the detention center,
coalition, according to the Saudi-backed and Emirati- through the debris. killed in Sunday’s airstrikes which came under a series
Yemen Data Project, a da- backed forces. “We have seen now under and another 50 wounded. of airstrikes before.
tabase tracking the war. Yemeni officials said Sun- the ruble that there are still Later in the day, health of- Rights groups have also
The coalition has faced in- day’s strikes targeted a col- many, many dead bodies ficials said the death toll previously documented
ternational criticism for air- lege in the city of Dhamar, that its very, very difficult climbed to 65. The officials that Houthis place civil-
strikes that have hit schools, which the Houthi rebels to extract,” said Rauchen- spoke on condition of ano- ian detainees in detention
hospitals and wedding par- were using as a detention stein. nymity because they were centers as human shields
ties, killing thousands of Ye- center. The coalition de- The U.N. human rights office not authorized to brief me- by placing them next to
meni civilians. nied it had struck a deten- for Yemen said 52 detain- dia. army barracks, under con-
Saudi Arabia intervened tion center, saying it had ees were among the dead, The Saudi-led coalition said stant threat of airstrikes.
on behalf of the interna- targeted a military site used and at least 68 detainees it had hit a military facil- In October 2016, an airstrike
tionally recognized Yem- by the rebels to restore were still missing. ity “in accordance with by the Saudi-led coalition
ini government in March drones and missiles. The Red Cross, which in- international humanitarian hit a prison complex in the
2015, after the Iran-backed “We were sleeping and spects detention centers law,” and that “all precau- Red Sea port of Hodeida,
Houthis took the capital. around midnight, there as part of its global mission, tionary measures were tak- killing at least 58 people,
The conflict has claimed were maybe three, or four, said it had visited detain- en to protect civilians.” mostly prisoners. At the
tens of thousands of lives, or six strikes. They were tar- ees at the site in the past. Col. Turki al-Maliki, a time, the coalition said the
thrust millions to the brink of geting the jail, I really don’t Former detainees said the spokesman for the coali- prison complex was used
famine and spawned the know the strike numbers,” Houthis had previously used tion, was quoted by the as a command center for
world’s worst humanitarian wounded detainee Na- the site to store and repair Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV Houthis.q