Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control much of Yemen, blamed the Saudi-led coalition for the attack in the northern city of Sa’ada. On Saturday, a coalition spokesman, Brigadier General Turki Al-Maliki, called those claims “baseless and baseless,” according to Saudi state news agency SPA.
Health Minister Taha Al-Mitwakel, Houthi’s health minister, said the attack killed at least 82 people and injured 266, the majority of whom are in critical condition. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) previously said 70 people were killed and 130 injured.
Another airstrike early Friday struck a telecommunications building in the strategic port city of Hodeidah, causing a nationwide internet outage, according to NetBlocks, an organization that detects network outages. The attack killed at least four children and injured 17, Save the Children spokesman Amjad Yamin said. Yamin said the NGO does not know how many adults were injured or killed.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said the internet outage, which was still ongoing Friday night, would affect relief efforts.
SPA reported on Friday that the coalition said it would also attack “military targets” in the capital Sanaa on Friday and claimed to have conducted the operation “in response to the threat of hostile attacks”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday it was “deeply concerned about the intensification of hostilities” and regretted “the human toll this escalation has caused”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called for de-escalation.
“The escalation of the fighting only exacerbates a serious humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people,” Blinken said in a statement.
Houthi’s health minister, Al-Mitwakel, called on the international community to do its best to open Sana’a airport to evacuate the injured.
“Seven years of aggression and siege against the health sector has put the health sector in a difficult and difficult situation and cannot deal with so many causes,” Al-Mitwakel said on a Houthi-owned television station.
Houthi-run media outlet Al Masirah showed graphic video of people under the rubble in the wake of Friday’s strike at the detention center. The Red Cross said it had sent emergency medical supplies to two hospitals that had received “very high” casualties.
“From what I heard from my colleague in Sa’ada, there are still many bodies at the site of the airstrike, and many people missing,” said Ahmad Mahat, head of MSF’s mission in Yemen. “It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence.”
An Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Sa’ada has been overwhelmed by an influx of injured people and is unable to accommodate more, Mahat said. Two other hospitals in the city have also received large numbers of victims, according to Doctors Without Borders.
This story has been updated to correct who is leading the coalition in Yemen.
