Iran ready to treat Yemenis injured in Saudi strike: Larijani

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has denounced the latest Saudi airstrike against Yemeni civilians, expressing Tehran’s readiness to take swift action to treat the wounded people.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to take swift action with regard to transferring the wounded [Yemenis] and treating them in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Yemen's Red Crescent Society,” Larijani said in a message to the speaker of Yemeni House of Representatives, Yahya Ali al-Raee, on Sunday.

After more than one and a half years of Saudi Arabia’s deadly military aggression against Yemen and acts of violence against the country’s oppressed people, the world once again was shocked by Saudi air raid on a funeral hall in the capital of Sana’a which left hundreds of defenseless civilians dead or injured, he added.

“This is while certain countries which claim to be advocating human rights and international organizations still continue their silence and indifference,” the top Iranian parliamentarian said.

Larijani noted that it is high time for conscientious people to ask themselves how the rulers of a country backed by the US and its allies allow themselves to attack the vital infrastructures of an impoverished country under fictitious pretexts and are committing the biggest human rights crimes by blatantly violating international law.

Larijani expressed sympathy with the Yemeni speaker of House of Representatives, people and the families of the victims of the recent Saudi airstrike.

Secure air corridor needed to help Yemenis

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, on Sunday said the Islamic Republic calls for an immediate end to Yemen’s air embargo and the establishment of a safe corridor to help the Yemeni people wounded in Saudi Arabia's Saturday airstrike.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to dispatch humanitarian relief such as medical teams, medicine and food to the injured and take in the wounded for treatment at Iran’s hospitals,” he added.

More than 140 people were killed and over 525 wounded on Saturday, when a Saudi airstrike hit a community hall in south of the capital, Sana’a, where a funeral for the father of Interior Minister Jalal al-Roweishan was being held.

The Saudi missiles tore through the hall with hundreds of body parts left strewn in and outside the building.

In a statement released on Sunday, Yemen’s Supreme Political Council vowed a firm response to the Saudi air raid, calling on people to take to the streets of Sana’a to decry the assault.

Earlier on Sunday, Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said Saudi rulers must be tried and punished as war criminals as soon as possible.

“In continuation of its ghastly measures against the oppressed and defenseless Yemeni people, the biased, conceited and aggressive Al Saud regime has committed an unforgivable crime and this move must not remain unanswered by world governments and nations,” Dehqan said, adding that whoever remains silent in the face of such a ghastly measure would be an accomplice to the Saudi regime’s crime.

The death toll was one of the largest in a single incident since March 2015, when the Riyadh regime began its deadly campaign to crush the Houthis and their allies and restore power to the resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Sana’a Mayor Abdel Qader Hilal was reported to be among the victims of Saturday’s assault.

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