Araweelo News Network
People gather around the engine of an unmanned aerial vehicle, which Houthi Ansarullah fighters said they downed in Sana’a, Yemen, on October 1, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)
Jawf-(ANN)-At least eight children and three women have been killed after Saudi fighter jets targeted a residential area in Yemen’s northern province of Jawf as the Riyadh regime presses ahead with its ruthless bombardment of its southern neighbor.
The tragic incident occurred on Sunday afternoon, when Saudi warplanes targeted a house in Hijeh neighborhood of al-Maslub district, Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported, adding that the children and women belonged to a single family.
The aerial aggression came just two days after Saudi war machine killed some 17 people after it struck a commercial neighborhood in northwestern province of Hajjah. Earlier on Friday, six other civilians were killed and eight others wounded when a Saudi airstrike targeted a bus carrying passengers along a road in the western coastal province of al-Hudaydah.
Saudi Arabia has been ceaselessly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the regime in Riyadh.
Latest figures show that the war has so far killed over 12,000 Yemenis and wounded thousands more. The Saudi aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.
Another 2,100 people have died of cholera since April as hospitals struggle to secure basic supplies across the country.
To further coerce Yemenis, Riyadh has imposed a tight blockade on nearly all Yemeni air, land and sea ports, prompting the rights and charity groups to raise the alarm on deteriorating situation in the country, as people, particularly children, are increasingly suffering from the lack of food and medical supplies.
On Thursday, three of the United Nations agencies, the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, in a statement made a fresh plea for the Saudi war machine to remove its blockade on the impoverished nation, warning that without aid shipments “untold thousands of innocent victims, among them many children, will die.”
They further warned that even if the blockade was only partially removed, an additional 3.2 million people would be pushed into hunger. The trio also said that one million children were at risk of a fast-growing diphtheria outbreak.
Certain Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, are key partners to the deadly Saudi-led campaign, which lacks any international mandate and has faced increasing criticism from rights groups.