[Peace] Reuters: Air strike kills 16 members of Yemeni imam's family

[Robert Naiman]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-idUSKCN1161MA

Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:24pm EDT
Air strike kills 16 members of Yemeni imam's family

At least 16 members of the extended family of a Yemeni mosque imam were
killed on Wednesday in an air strike on their family home in northern Yemen
by the Saudi-led Arab coalition, a Reuters witness, a medic and a resident
said.

The coalition has been giving air support to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour
Hadi in his fight against Iran-allied Houthi militia who have seized much
of Yemen since 2014, but has drawn criticism over civilian casualties
incurred in the campaign.

Witnesses said missiles struck a house of the imam, identified as Saleh Abu
Zainah, in Saada, the capital of Saada province in northern Yemen, the home
territory of the Houthis who hail from the Zaydi branch of Shi'ite Islam.

The imam, his family, his two sons and their families all died in the
attack, including at least four children, they said.

A Saudi military spokesman said the coalition was checking whether the
report was true and that an investigation would be conducted and its
results published if the incident was verified.

Pictures taken by a Reuters photographer showed men digging up the body of
a child from under the rubble.

"The air raid happened in the morning and because the house was made of
mud, it took us until noon to be able to dig the bodies out," said Nayef, a
resident who helped remove the rubble to recover the bodies.

A medic said rescue workers were concerned about fresh air strikes when
they arrived at the scene and found aircraft still hovering overhead.

It was at least the fourth strike by the Saudi-led coalition on a civilian
target since U.N.-sponsored peace talks between the Houthis and their
General People's Congress party allies on one side and the Saudi-backed
Yemeni government on the other ended without an agreement earlier this
month.

A rocket launched from inside Yemen into Saudi Arabia later on Wednesday
killed a Saudi soldier in the southern city of Najran, according to the
Saudi interior ministry.

Saudi authorities say a wave of shelling by the Houthis since August has
killed 29 civilians, including children, and injured around 300 in Najran.

NEW PUSH FOR PEACE

The United Nations human rights office called on Aug. 25 for more light to
be shed on the Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen and for violations, including
attacks on protected sites like hospitals, to be punished.

Coalition air strikes are responsible for some 60 percent of the civilians
killed since March 2015, a U.N. rights office said in a report last week.

At least 10,000 people have been killed overall in Yemen's 18-month-old
civil war, the United Nations said on Tuesday, approaching double the
estimates of more than 6,000 cited by officials and aid workers for much of
2016.

U.N. Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the U.N. Security Council on
Wednesday that he would resume consultations with the parties to the
conflict to try to take advantage of a new thrust for peace agreed by
United States, Gulf Arab states and the United Nations earlier this month.

"My priority will be to gain a re-commitment from all sides to the
cessation of hostilities," he said.

On Aug. 18, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) decided to evacuate its staff
from six hospitals in northern Yemen after an air strike on a facility run
by the medical charity that killed 19 people.

The Saudi-led coalition expressed deep regret over the decision and said it
was trying to set up "urgent meetings" with MSF.

===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1
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