US-backed Saudi air strikes massacre dozens of Yemeni children for second time in two weeks
By
Jordan Shilton
27 August 2018
At least 22 children and four women were killed by Saudi air strikes in Yemen on Thursday as the US-backed coalition continues its onslaught on the port city of Hodeidah and surrounding areas. The latest atrocities came just two weeks after a Saudi aircraft dropped an American-supplied bomb on a school bus in the northern town of Dahyan, killing 40 children and injuring more than 50.
According to reports from a news network aligned with the Houthi rebels, the first Saudi air strike hit a camp for internally displaced people (IDPS) in Duraihami, killing five people and injuring two. Then, in an act of cold-blooded murder that has become the hallmark of the Saudi air war in the impoverished country, an aircraft struck a group of 26 women and children trying to flee the scene of the earlier air strike by bus.
The Saudi-led coalition sought to justify the bombing by claiming that the rebels fired a ballistic missile from the area earlier in the day. In reality, the indiscriminate targeting of civilians is nothing new. According to data compiled by al-Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project, around one third of the 16,000 Saudi air strikes on Yemen since March 2015 have hit civilian targets. These have included weddings, water treatment plants, hospitals and electricity plants.
As with every air strike launched by the Saudis and their allies, which bear responsibility for the vast majority of the tens of thousands of civilian deaths caused by the bloody three-year-long conflict, the two strikes Thursday would not have occurred without the support of the United States. US military personnel operate a joint headquarters with their Saudi counterparts in Riyadh…