Houthi-run health ministry says airstrikes it blames on Saudi Arabia kill 27 near Yemen capital

Nov 7 (Reuters) – At least 27 people were killed and 36 wounded in what the Houthi-run Saba news agency said were Saudi airstrikes on a village near Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Saturday, in one of the deadliest reported attacks since fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned group resumed in July.

Reuters could not independently verify the account. Saudi Arabia’s Center for International Communication did not immediately comment, saying it would look into Reuters’ inquiries.

The renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition and the group, which controls Sanaa. The Houthis have since launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities, while Riyadh has carried out airstrikes in Yemen in support of its Yemeni allies.

The ministry said the strikes hit homes in the town of Bani Hushaysh, a Houthi stronghold east of Sanaa, and that most of those killed were women and children.

Abdul-Aziz al-Dailami, director of Sehatuna Hospital in Sanaa, said many victims remained trapped under the rubble, including first responders. “The strikes keep coming. Just as rescuers arrive, another strike hits. We have even lost some of our own medical responders, who have been martyred,” he said.

“We received a number of wounded individuals in very critical condition, with injuries to the head, chest and legs, as well as fractures,” al-Dailami added.

The fighting, a spillover from the wider US-Iran conflict, has revived a complex 12-year war in Yemen that has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises globally and fragmented the Arab world’s most impoverished country. The number of people displaced since the latest round of fighting began has climbed to more than 200,000, the International Organization for Migration said in October.

(Writing by Enas Alashray; Editing by Alistair Bell)