In a week of deadly airstrikes and civilian deaths, Saudi Arabia adds school bus and 50 Yemeni children to the list
The late
morning sun conspired with a cloudless blue sky to picturesquely
frame the city of Dhahian in southern Saada province. Suddenly the
serenity was broken by the loud piercing shriek of fighter jets over
the quiet village, followed by a deafening explosion. When the thick
black smoke finally began to dissipate, more than 20 mothers
discovered a school bus carrying their children had been transformed
into a hellish scene: choking dust, smoldering shops, and the charred
corpses of children buried under the mangled school bus. Anguished
moans and screams of grief and pain filled the air.
At a bed
in the Jomhouri Hospital in Saada, four-year-old Mohammed was
receiving first aid when he came to the realization that he was still
alive but that more than 35 of his classmates, older and younger, lay
dead in beds near him as if they were asleep. Others were lying in
torn, blood-stained clothing along with school bags, fighting death
in the same room.
Mohammed
was one of the 80 civilians wounded on Thursday in fresh U.S.-Saudi
strikes that targeted a school bus carrying children to summer camp
on Dhahian’s outskirts in Yemen’s northwestern province of Saada.
It was
8:30 a.m. when the explosion shattered the day. “What did these
children do to deserve this?” a 32-year-old witness to the strike
asked. Abdul-Ghani Nayeb, the head of the Health Department in Saada
told MintPress more than 50 were killed and over 80 others were
wounded as a result of the strike. Some were shoppers and passers-by,
but most were children.
The
owner of a nearby restaurant, Zaid Hussein Deib, cried out, “they
were not Iranian experts,” as he scrambled past overturned plastic
white tables and splintered blue tiles. “They were children; they
were not carrying ballistic missiles.” Deib lost two sons in the
attack.
The
death toll is expected to rise, as many victims of the strike remain
in critical condition and hospitals struggle to cope with a lack of
medical supplies as a result of a Saudi coalition-imposed siege that
began in 2015. The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition’s blockade of
Yemen has prevented medicine and other critical commodities from
reaching around 8.4 million people. Al-Jomhouri hospital, already
crowded with a number of wounded from previous airstrikes, has
launched an urgent appeal for Yemeni citizens to donate blood.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement
that the school bus was indeed carrying children. Johannes Bruwer,
head of the delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, said in a tweet that
most of the victims were under the age of 10.
Full
report:
WARNING:
GRAPHIC VIDEO - Video shows the aftermath of the airstrike
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