Saudi warplanes hit checkpoint outside Sana’a, kill seven

Rasa - Saudi warplanes have reportedly bombed a checkpoint near Yemen’s capital of Sana’a, killing at least seven people, mostly civilians.

News ID: 432052

Date: 30 August 2017 - 21:10

RNA - Residents said the strike, which targeted the security checkpoint in the Bani Matar District in Sana’a Province.

The checkpoint was being manned by Yemen’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs and defending the nation against the Saudi war.

Witnesses said the fatalities included five civilians in a taxi and two armed personnel manning the site.

The strike made the taxi careen into a nearby gas station, setting it alight and complicating rescue operations, they added.

Earlier reports said an oil tanker had been hit by the air raid.

In March 2015, the Saudi regime and its allies launched a military campaign against Yemen with the aim of reinstalling its former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had earlier resigned amid an internal political conflict and fled to Riyadh.

In its tallies released in February, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development said the Saudi war had killed over 12,000 civilians, including 2,568 kids.

The latest Saudi air raid comes days after its warplanes bombed a hotel north of the capital, massacring 60 civilians.

‘Grave violations against kids must end’

In another development on Tuesday, the United Nations children’s fund urged an immediate halt to the “grave violations” against children in war-torn Yemen.

Speaking from Sana’a, UNICEF Representative for Yemen, Meritxel Relanom, said 1,721, children have been killed, while almost 3,000 others have been either maimed or seriously injured since early 2015.

“We really need to put a stop on the grave violations against children in the country,” said the UNICEF official.

“The only way” to do this, she added, is to implement a peace agreement, negotiated between “all the parties in the conflict” and the “alliances of those parties in the conflict.”

Several rounds of UN-backed peace talks on Yemen have yielded no result as the Saudi-led war continues to wreak havoc on the poorest Arab nation.

Earlier this week, dozens of rights groups from around the world, including Human Rights Watch, urged the UN Human Rights Council to launch an independent investigation into the rights violations committed in Yemen since the Saudi-led military coalition invaded the country.

On Sunday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also strongly urged the warring sides in the conflict to allow humanitarian assistance into the impoverished country.

847/940