Houthis say at least 25 killed in Saudi airstrike

Media linked to Yemen’s Houthi movement say at least 25 people, including women and children, have been killed in Saudi airstrikes.

The Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognised government, has not commented, according to the BBC.

Live footage broadcast by “Al Masirah”, a television station run by the Houthis, showed rescuers pulling bodies from the rubble of several buildings in al-Shariyah, a town east of the capital, Sanaa. The bodies of young children were visible among those recovered.

The station also showed injured people being carried on stretchers to hospital. The Houthi-run “Saba” news agency said Saudi Arabia carried out the attack.

Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting the Houthis for more than a decade in support of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

The war in Yemen had been dormant for several years before reigniting as a result of the Iran war, the BBC reported. A truce began to unravel after Saudi Arabia struck the Houthi-controlled airport in Sanaa to prevent an Iranian plan from landing there.

The Tehran-backed Houthis later targeted Abha airport in Saudi Arabia and began striking Saudi ships using the Red Sea off Yemen as an alternative oil export route to the Strait of Hormuz.

Major fighting has since resumed between the Houthis and forces fighting for Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.

An attack on a market in Taiz province on Friday, an area that has been a focus of much of the recent fighting, was reported to have killed 30 people. The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out the strike, while government forces accused the Houthis of firing a missile at the site.

The United Nations says more than 1,600 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced since the fighting resumed.

Saudi Arabia has regularly bombed Houthi positions, while the group has fired multiple missiles at targets inside Saudi Arabia, including airports and oil facilities.

Hours before the strike in al-Shariyah, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted a missile heading towards Riyadh.

Houthi leader Mahdi al-Mashat has vowed that the group will take revenge for the latest attacks in Yemen.