Saudi airstrike on motel in Yemen kills at least 41
By
Niles Niemuth
24 August 2017
At least 41 civilians were killed early Wednesday morning when missiles fired by a Saudi-led coalition jet fighter slammed into a motel on the northern outskirts of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The official death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are pulled from the rubble.
Reports indicate that approximately 100 farmers were sleeping in the two-story building in Arhab at the time that it was blown up. Journalist Saad Abedine reported on Twitter that the motel was located near a Houthi camp, and reports indicate that Houthi rebels were also among those killed by the airstrike.
The head of the nearby Umrah hospital, Fahd Marhab, told reporters that his facility had not received any wounded, as everyone in the building had been killed in the attack. Pictures of the massacre posted on social media show corpses sandwiched between collapsed slabs of concrete.
The attack was just one of dozens of airstrikes that hit in and around Sanaa early Wednesday, claiming more than 100 lives.
“It is probably the biggest massacre Yemen has witnessed by the Saudi-led coalition,” journalist Hakim Al Masmari told Al Jazeera. “The air strike targeted a motel late early this morning. It was part of at least 25 air strikes that targeted Sanaa and the outskirts of the city since midnight. The air strikes attacked every part of Sanaa. It was a deadly night.”
Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have been waging an unrelenting war from the air and on the ground in an effort to push back the Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The war that began in 2015 with the backing of then-US President Barack Obama is being ramped up under President…