Tehran categorically denounced the Saudi air strike against a crowded marketplace in the Yemeni city of Saada on Monday which claimed the lives of at least 14 civilians and injured 25 others. RNA - Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi issued a statement on Tuesday and expressed deepest sympathies with the bereaved families of victims of the recent manslaughter of the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen.
He underlined that Iran strongly rebukes such “brutal and inhumane acts” that aim to cover up the perpetrators’ failure in their outright and long-standing war crimes.
“After more than four years of leading the devastating war in Yemen, the offenders have had no achievements but failure, and they want to cover up their failure in both the political arena and the battlefield by killing children and women in Yemen,” Mousavi said.
The Iranian spokesman also censured the international community’s silence regarding the bloodshed in the war-torn Arab country.
At least 14 civilians have been killed when Saudi-led warplanes conducted an airstrike on a crowded market in Yemen’s Northern province of Saada, as the Riyadh’s monarchy presses ahead with its bombardment campaign against its Southern neighbor.
Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that the Saudi-led jets pounded the Al Sabet market in Qataber district of the province on Monday afternoon, killing 14 civilians, including two children.
It further said the aerial aggression also left 25 others, including 11 children, wounded. The report added that the airstrike occurred at a time when the market was overcrowded.
Yemen’s health ministry also said at least 10 of the wounded were in critical condition, warning that the death toll was likely to rise.
According to Fars News Agancy, Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen since March 2015 to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed more than 20,000 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children. Despite Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people in need and is seeing a spike in needs, fueled by ongoing conflict, a collapsing economy and diminished social services and livelihoods. The blockade on Yemen has smothered humanitarian deliveries of food and medicine to the import-dependent state.
The UN has repeatedly criticized the Saudi-UAE-led military coalition's bombing campaign and placed it on a blacklist of child rights violators last year.
A UN panel has also compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on civilian targets.
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