Saudi attack on hospital kills eight as war in Yemen enters fifth year
By
Niles Niemuth
28 March 2019
A Saudi coalition jet fighter carried out an attack on a hospital in Yemen Tuesday morning destroying the medical facility in Kitaf, a rural area approximately 60 kilometers outside the northwestern city of Saadah. The strike, which hit a gas station just outside the gates of the hospital, killed eight people, including five children, and forced the closure of the facility which provided much needed medical services to thousands of people in the region.
The criminal attack in Kitaf came four years to the day after a US-backed, Saudi-led military coalition began dropping bombs on Yemen in an effort to push back an insurgency by Houthi rebels which had taken over much of the country, and to reinstate the puppet government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The attack on the hospital in Kitaf was especially egregious since it had been “de-conflicted,” meaning that its exact coordinates had been provided to the Saudis as part of a no-strike list drawn up to keep any bombs and missiles from falling within a 100-meter radius of the facility.
The missile strike on the hospital also took place just as it was opening for patients in the morning, the busiest time of day. The attack destroyed the hospital’s pharmacy and damaged its medicine supply, emergency power generator and an ambulance. It is expected that it could take months for the facility to be fully operational again.
One medical worker was injured while treating two children in the hospital’s emergency room. “All people were screaming and running out of the hospital. The structure of the hospital was totally damaged inside,” he reported to Save the Children. “Our colleague lost two children. They were…