26 dead as Saudi jets hit northern Yemen residential area

More than two dozen people have been killed and several others injured when Saudi warplanes carried out two separate airstrikes against a residential area in Yemen’s northern province of Sana’a.

Saudi jets fired a number of missiles at a water well drilling machine in a village of the Arhab district on Saturday morning, Arabic-language Saba news agency reported.

Residents said Sunday that at least 15 civilians were killed when Saudi warplanes targeted workers drilling for water in Beit Saadan. Some 20 others were also injured in the assault.

Another 11 people lost their lives and 20 wounded as Riyadh’s aircraft then bombed the area once more as residents of the village rushed to the scene of the first air raid.

Separately, Saudi warplanes conducted six airstrikes against Sana'a International Airport, also known as El Rahaba Airport, causing substantial damage. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties.

Saudi aircraft also struck Sahar and Ghamr districts in the mountainous northwestern province of Sa'ada, located about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of the capital Sana'a, though no reports about casualties and the extent of damage caused were available.

Elsewhere in al-Ghayl district of the northern province of Jawf, Saudi jets carried out a number of aerial attacks, but no casualties were reported.

On Saturday, Saudi-backed Yemeni militants loyal to Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen's president who has resigned and fled the capital, lobbed a number of rockets and mortar shells at the positions of Yemeni army soldiers and their allied Popular Committees in al-Wazi'iyah district of the southwestern province of Ta’izz.

Yemeni troops and Popular Committees fighters also launched tactical and ballistic Scud missiles at a power station as well as a water desalination plant in Shaqiq district of Saudi Arabia's southwestern border region of Jizan.

Saudi Arabia has been pounding Yemen since March 2015, with the UN putting the death toll from the military aggression at about 10,000. The offensive was launched to crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement and their allies and reinstate Hadi.

Houthi fighters took state matters into their own hands in the wake of Hadi's resignation and escape, which threw Yemen into a state of uncertainty and threatened a total security breakdown in the country, where an al-Qaeda affiliate is present.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said last month the death toll from the Saudi military aggression could rise even further as some areas had no medical facilities, and that people were often buried without any official record being made.

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