At least eight women and a child were killed in an overnight air raid on a funeral reception near the Yemeni capital Sanaa, medics said.

At least 10 more women were reported wounded in the raid on Thursday, which hit the women's reception area at a funeral in Arhab district, 40km north of Sanaa.

Medics dispatched to the incident identified the bombing site as the residence of Mohammed Al Nakii in the village of Shiraa.

Houthi rebels, who control the capital, accused a Saudi-backed coalition of carrying out the attack.

A coalition spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Residents said the raid took place when mourners had gathered to offer condolences after a woman died.

"People heard the sound of planes and started running from the house but then the bombs hit the house directly. The roof collapsed and there was blood was everywhere," a resident of the village told a Reuters news agency cameraman on Thursday.

Pictures published in local media showed people searching through the rubble of the destroyed house of Nakii, a tribal chief who was said to be allied with Yemen's Houthi movement.

Last October, 140 people were killed and more than 600 injured in a coalition bombardment of a funeral hall in rebel-controlled Sanaa.

READ MORE: Yemenis mark six-year anniversary of uprising

At the time, the Saudi-led coalition blamed the bombing on "wrong information" from its Yemeni allies.

Yemen's internationally recognised government has been locked in conflict with Houthi rebels since late 2014.

The fighting intensified in March 2015 when the Houthis first advanced on the southern city of Aden, prompting Saudi Arabia and its allies to start an air campaign against the group.

The death toll from the October raid was one of the highest in any single incident since the Saudi-led alliance began military operations to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power following his ousting by the Houthis.

The UN says the civilian death toll has reached 10,000, with 40,000 wounded.</s>Coalition air strikes on funerals seem to be common in Yemen.

In the latest Saudi-led coalition air strike on mourners attending a Yemeni funeral, ten civilians were killed , all of whom women and children.

Mourners who had gathered overnight at a house north of Yemen’s capital Sana’a on Wednesday were blown to smithereens as they ran from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike.

Nine women and one child were reportedly killed and dozens more injured.



Local residents say at least nine women and a child died after Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck a house north of Sanaa on Wednesday.

The strike on the house near Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, was carried out by military aircraft deployed by a Saudi-led coalition. Dozens were reportedly injured in the incident. The coalition said it was investigating reports of civilian casualties in the area.

The air strike hit the house of a local tribal leader in Ashira, a village north of Sana’a, on Wednesday night, a resident said. Mourners had gathered there to offer condolences after a woman had died.

“People heard the sound of planes and started running from the house but then the bombs hit the house directly. The roof collapsed. Blood was everywhere,” a second resident of Ashira, who gave his name as Hamid Ali, told a Reuters cameraman.

Pictures published by local media showed tribesmen searching through the rubble of a destroyed house said to belong to Mohammed al-Nakaya, a tribal leader allied with Yemen’s Houthi movement.

One showed a man kneeling in the dust cradling the body of an elderly woman.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the pictures.

“We are aware of media reports that Houthi rebels are claiming that Yemeni civilians were killed in an air raid overnight near Sana’a,” the Saudi-led coalition said in statement.

“There has been fighting between Yemeni armed forces and rebels in this area in recent days. We are investigating the reports.”

In October the alliance of mainly Gulf Arab states was heavily criticised after launching an air strike on a funeral gathering in Sana’a that killed 140 people, according to one UN estimate.

The death toll from that strike was one of the highest in any single incident since the alliance began military operations in March 2015 to try to restore the administration of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whom the Houthis had ousted.

The White House said after the October funeral attack that it might consider cutting its support to the Saudi-led campaign, which has been providing air support for Mr Hadi’s forces in a civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced millions.

The alliance, which says it does not target civilians, blamed the October attack on incorrect information it said it had received from the Yemeni military that armed Houthi leaders were in the area.</s>SANAA: Warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition struck a house north of Yemen’s capital where a crowd of mourners was gathered, residents said on Thursday, killing nine women and a child and injuring dozens.

The Saudi-led coalition said it was investigating reports of civilian casualties in the area.

The air strike hit the house of a local tribal leader in Ashira, a village north of Sanaa, on Wednesday night, a resident told Reuters. Mourners had gathered there to offer condolences after a woman died. “People heard the sound of planes and started running from the house but then the bombs hit the house directly. The roof collapsed. Blood was everywhere,” a second resident of Ashira, who gave his name as Hamid Ali, told a Reuters cameraman. Pictures published by local media showed tribesmen searching through the rubble of a destroyed house said to belong to Mohammed al-Nakaya, a tribal leader allied with Yemen’s Houthi movement.

One showed a man kneeling in the dust cradling the body of an elderly woman.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the pictures.

“We are aware of media reports that Houthi rebels are claiming that Yemeni civilians were killed in an air raid overnight near Sanaa,” the coalition said in statement. “There has been fighting between Yemeni armed forces and rebels in this area in recent days. We are investigating the reports.”

In October the alliance of mainly Gulf Arab states was heavily criticised after launching an air strike on a funeral gathering in Sanaa that killed 140 people, according to one UN estimate.

The death toll from that strike was one of the highest in any single incident since the alliance began military operations in March 2015 to try to restore the administration of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who the Houthis ousted.

The White House said at the time it might consider cutting its support to the Saudi-led campaign which has been providing air support for Hadi’s forces in a civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced millions.

The alliance, which says it does not target civilians, blamed the October funeral attack on incorrect information it said it received from the Yemeni military that armed Houthi leaders were in the area.</s>Yemenis mourn over the body of a victim of an air raid that hit a funeral reception near Sanaa, on February 16, 2017 (AFP Photo/Mohammed HUWAIS)

Sanaa (AFP) - An air strike killed eight women and a child at a funeral reception near the Yemeni capital, witnesses said Thursday, adding to the conflict's mounting civilian death toll.

At least 10 other women were wounded in the overnight raid on the district of Arhab, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Sanaa, medics sent to the site told AFP.

The Iran-backed Huthi Shiite rebels, who seized large parts of the country including the capital in 2014, accused the Saudi-backed Arab coalition supporting the Yemeni government of carrying out the strike.

A coalition statement sent to AFP said the group was "investigating the reports" that civilians were killed in the raid near Sanaa.

Mohammed Al Nakii, whose home medics said was hit, told an AFP correspondent at the site that at the time of the bombing he had been receiving condolences for his brother who died on Sunday.

He said his own wife was among those killed.

Nakii said he saw four women die immediately at the scene, describing the attack as "barbaric".

It was not immediately clear if the house was deliberately targeted.

An AFP photographer said the stone building had been totally demolished except for three remaining arches.

Bloodstains, clothing and shoes were seen among the rubble.

The home had been built on a plot of land with no other buildings visible in the immediate vicinity.

Yemen's war pits the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi against Huthi insurgents allied with forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 on the side of Hadi says that it does not target civilians.

But it has faced repeated allegations of deliberately striking weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals.

In October the coalition admitted to killing 140 people in an air strike on a funeral in Sanaa, blaming the deaths on "incorrect information". It had initially denied involvement.

A separate raid Wednesday targeted a Huthi post in Khokha, south of the major Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing 15 rebels and wounding 20 others, according to military sources allied with the Arab coalition.

The sources said the raid, which comes as government forces prepare for an assault to retake rebel-held Hodeida, targeted armoured vehicles at a base in Khokha.

Khokha lies between Hodeida and government-controlled Mokha further south on the Red Sea coast.

Forces loyal to the government took full control of Mokha last week as part of a major offensive to oust the Huthis and their allies from Yemen's southwestern coast.

The Huthis have carried out retaliatory rocket strikes on Saudi Arabia and engaged in firefights along the border since the start of the coalition campaign.

Saudi Arabia said Thursday that it had intercepted another missile fired by Huthi rebels at its territory.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported the missile had been headed for the city of Khamis Mushait, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Yemeni border.

Khamis Mushait is home to an air base central to the coalition campaign against the Huthis.

The United Nations says more than 7,400 people, including around 1,400 children, have been killed in two years of fighting in Yemen.

Three million others have been displaced, according to the UN.

New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report blaming the coalition for a January 10 air strike that hit a market.

The raid, near a school in the rebel-held northern province of Nihm, killed five people, including at least one child.

"The bombing death of an 11-year-old girl on her way to school shows how little the Saudi-led coalition took to heart its brief inclusion on the UN secretary-general's 'list of shame'," said HRW's Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.

The UN in June added the coalition to a blacklist of child rights violators over its involvement in Yemen, though it was later removed.

A 14-member independent team tasked with investigating strikes on Yemen last year acknowledged "shortcomings" in some coalition strikes.

The team includes coalition states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Yemen.</s>An airstrike killed eight women and a child at a funeral reception near the Yemeni capital, witnesses said Thursday, adding to the conflict’s mounting civilian death toll.

At least 10 other women were wounded in the overnight raid on the district of Arhab, 40 km (25 miles) north of Sanaa, medics sent to the site told AFP.

The United Nations gave the toll as at least six women and one girl killed, with Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the U.N.’s special envoy to Yemen, branding such attacks on civilians as “unjustifiable.

The Iran-backed Houthi Shiite rebels, who seized large parts of the country including the capital in 2014, accused the Saudi-backed Arab coalition supporting the Yemeni government of carrying out the strike.

A coalition statement sent to AFP said the group was “investigating the reports” that civilians were killed in the raid near Sanaa.

Mohammed Al Nakii, whose home medics said was hit, told an AFP correspondent at the site that at the time of the bombing he had been receiving condolences for his brother who died on Sunday.

He said his own wife was among those killed.

Nakii said he saw four women die immediately at the scene, describing the attack as “barbaric.

It was not immediately clear if the house was deliberately targeted.

An AFP photographer said the stone building had been totally demolished except for three remaining arches.

Bloodstains, clothing and shoes were seen among the rubble.

The home had been built on a plot of land with no other buildings visible in the immediate vicinity.

Yemen’s war pits the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi against Houthi insurgents allied with forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition that intervened in 2015 on the side of Hadi says it does not target civilians, but it has faced repeated allegations of deliberately striking weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals.

In October the coalition admitted to killing 140 people in an airstrike on a funeral in Sanaa, blaming the deaths on “incorrect information.” It had initially denied involvement.

“Women and children in particular have been subjected to unspeakable suffering in this brutal conflict,” Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement condemning the latest strike. “This should stop immediately.”

A separate raid Wednesday targeted a Houthi post in Khokha, south of the major Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing 15 rebels and wounding 20 others, according to military sources allied with the Arab coalition.

The sources said the raid, which comes as government forces prepare for an assault to retake rebel-held Hodeida, targeted armored vehicles at a base in Khokha.

Khokha lies between Hodeida and government-controlled Mokha farther south on the Red Sea coast.

Forces loyal to the government took full control of Mokha last week as part of a major offensive to oust the Houthis and their allies from Yemen’s southwestern coast.

The Houthis have carried out retaliatory rocket strikes on Saudi Arabia and engaged in firefights along the border since the start of the coalition campaign.

Saudi Arabia said Thursday that it had intercepted another missile fired by Houthi rebels at its territory.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported the missile had been headed for the city of Khamis Mushait, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Yemeni border.

Khamis Mushait is home to an airbase central to the coalition campaign.

More than 7,400 people, including around 1,400 children, have been killed in two years of fighting in Yemen, according to the U.N.

Three million others have been displaced, according to the U.N.

New York-based group Human Rights Watch on Thursday released a report blaming the coalition for a January 10 airstrike that hit a market in the rebel-held northern province of Nihm, killing five people including at least one child.

A 14-member independent team tasked with investigating strikes on Yemen last year acknowledged “shortcomings” in some coalition strikes.

The team includes coalition states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Yemen.</s>The Saudi-led coalition said Thursday it will probe reports of an airstrike targeting a gathering of female mourners near the capital, which killed seven people. The airstrike hit a house packed with mourners in Arhab, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Sanaa, on Wednesday. Fahd Maqhat, head of the nearby Omeria hospital, said six women and one girl were killed, and that another 10 women were wounded.

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“There have been ongoing military confrontations for days between the Yemeni armed forces and Houthi militias” outside Sanaa, the coalition said in a statement, referring to the Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital. “We will verify these claims and provide media outlets with any information we obtain.” Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said he was “saddened and appalled” by the attack on the funeral gathering.

“It is not the first time that a funeral gathering is struck by airstrikes, nor is it the first time that women and children are killed in civilian premises such as hospitals, schools and private homes,” he said in a statement.

“The manner in which the parties to the conflict are waging this war is taking an unacceptable toll on the civilian population in Yemen.” The war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced over three million people. It pits the Houthis and allied army units against the US-backed coalition, which is fighting to restore an internationally recognized government.</s>SANAA, Yemen – The Saudi-led coalition said Thursday it will probe reports of an airstrike targeting a gathering of female mourners near the capital, which killed seven people.

The airstrike hit a house packed with mourners in Arhab, some 25 miles from Sanaa, on Wednesday. Fahd Maqhat, head of the nearby Omeria hospital, said six women and one girl were killed, and that another 10 women were wounded.

“There have been ongoing military confrontations for days between the Yemeni armed forces and Houthi militias” outside Sanaa, the coalition said in a statement, referring to the Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital. “We will verify these claims and provide media outlets with any information we obtain.”

Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Yemen, said he was “saddened and appalled” by the attack on the funeral gathering.

“It is not the first time that a funeral gathering is struck by airstrikes, nor is it the first time that women and children are killed in civilian premises such as hospitals, schools and private homes,” he said in a statement. “The manner in which the parties to the conflict are waging this war is taking an unacceptable toll on the civilian population in Yemen.”

The war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced over three million people. It pits the Houthis and allied army units against the U.S.-backed coalition, which is fighting to restore an internationally recognized government.

Tens of thousands of people have been trapped in the war zone, unable to flee to safety, the U.N. envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said Thursday, calling on all the parties to the conflict to “respect the sanctity of civilian life.”</s>Yemen's Houthi rebels and medical officials say Saudi-led airstrikes near the rebel-held capital have killed at least five people.

The head of the Houthis' media office, Abdel-Rahman al-Ahnomi, told The Associated Press the first airstrike on Wednesday hit a group of women attending a funeral and a second hit first responders in Arhab, some 25 miles from Sanaa. He said the strikes killed and wounded dozens of people.

Medical officials said five bodies were recovered from the scene, mostly women, and that the toll was likely to rise. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

The war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced over three million people.

A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis and forces loyal to a former Yemeni president since March 2015. The campaign is aimed at restoring the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.</s>Saudi-led coalition forces and their Yemeni allies fighting under the banner of President Mansour Hadi have captured several strategic ports on the Red Sea in recent weeks, and are vowing to try and pursue the largest prize, control over the Yemeni port of Hodeida.

The fight involves both an internal tug-of-war and a proxy battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for influence over strategic waterways.

Saudi-backed Yemeni media recently broadcast video of Saudi-backed Yemeni militia fighters cheering after they seized part of the key Red Sea port of al-Mukha. The advance comes at the expense of Yemen’s Houthi militiamen, who control the capital, Sana'a, as well as the more important Red Sea port of Hodeida, 226 kilometers to the west.

Pro-Houthi media showed Yemenis fighting under the Houthi banner shouting that they would fight to defend the port of Hodeida until the death. One young man, dressed in a soccer shirt, claimed enthusiastically that he would gladly die to defend his country.

The pro-Houthi deputy governor of Hodeida province harangued a small crowd with patriotic rhetoric to assert that everyone supports the Houthis and will fight to keep control of Hodeida. Several officers from Yemen’s traditional military, loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, appear on camera as well but sound less enthusiastic.

A pro-Saudi Yemeni official noted that forces loyal to Hadi were advancing on ports near Hodeida, but that the Houthis were laying mines to try and stop them.

The Houthis’ loose coalition of mostly Shi’ite allies, including Iran and its proxy Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, have been waging both a media war and a shadowy campaign to help the Houthis against their Saudi nemesis, whom they are confronting by proxy elsewhere, in both Syria and Iraq.

Lebanon’s Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who heads the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, claimed in a recent speech that Saudi Arabia has “always behaved as if Yemen was one of its own provinces” and cites a quote by Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini claiming that Yemen will “stick the Saudi royal family’s faces in the mud.”

Saudi military spokesman General Ahmed Assiri accused Iran recently of helping to support Houthi forces in the conflict, which began in March 2015, but gave no details.

Hilal Khashan, who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut told VOA, however, that he does not think Iranian military aid is decisive.

“Yemen has far more firearms than people. On average, there are three rifles to each Yemeni and when the Houthis took over most of Yemen [in 2015], they were able with the support of Ali Saleh to take over large quantities of Yemeni army weapons.”

Saudi media, nevertheless, continue to stress the theme that Iran’s presence in Yemen’s vital Red Sea ports could pose a threat to international maritime trade going through the strategic Bab al Mandeb strait. The Saudi coalition exerted a major effort to retake Yemen’s largest port city of Aden, as well as key islands surrounding it in 2015.

Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani Sadr, for his part, questions claims of Iranian domination of the region or its strategic waterways, despite Iran’s rhetoric toward that end.

He said the [Iranian] regime propagates the theme that it can dominate the region in order to justify [its policies] to its own people, while in reality it is weak and unstable.

He added that Iran has sentimental attachments to Yemen due to both Yemen’s Zaidi Shi’ite beliefs, and its blood ties to ancient Iranian conquerors. Above and beyond those factors, he said, Iran fancies itself to be the leader of the Islamic world, a pretension it shares with rivals Saudi Arabia and Turkey.</s>Nine women and one child have died after a Saudi-led coalition war plane struck a funeral gathering in Yemen, officials have said.

A strike which hit a house in which mourners were gathered north of the capital on Wednesday also injured dozens more civilians, witnesses said.

The home of a local tribal leader in Ashira, a village north of Sanaa, was destroyed in the strike, a resident told Reuters. Locals had gathered there to offer condolences after a woman in the family died.

“People heard the sound of planes and started running from the house but then the bombs hit the house directly. The roof collapsed. Blood was everywhere,” a second resident, who gave his name as Hamid Ali, said.

Yemeni media published pictures of people searching through the rubble of Mohammed al-Nakaya’s house. Mr Nakyaya is allied to Yemen's Houthi movement, the Shia insurgents currently in control of most of the country.

One picture widely shared online showed a middle-aged man kneeling on the ground, cradling the body of an elderly woman.

The Saudi-led Arab coalition announced Thursday that it will investigate the attack on the funeral and whether civilians were deliberately targeted.

“We are aware of media reports that Houthi rebels are claiming that Yemeni civilians were killed in an air raid overnight near Sanaa,” the coalition said in statement.

“There has been fighting between Yemeni armed forces and rebels in this area in recent days. We are investigating the reports.”

Yemen is currently in the grips of an almost two-year long civil war which has pitted Houthi rebels against the internationally recognised exiled government. More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict, which has also exacerbated disease and hunger.

Extremist groups such as al-Qaeda have also taken advantage of Yemen’s chaos, establishing several strongholds in the country.

Since March 2015 a Saudi-Arabia led coalition of mainly Gulf Arab states has bombed Houthi and al-Qaeda positions at the request of the ousted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government.

The campaign has drawn international criticism for allegedly targeting civilian infrastructure, causing unnecessary lose of human life that the UN says could amount to war crimes.

In the single worst incident in October 2016, the bombing of a funeral gathering in Sanaa killed around 140 people.

The Gulf alliance maintains that it does not target civilians. An investigation into Wednesday’s funeral bombing is underway, officials said.
An air raid on a funeral in a village north of Sana'a kills at least eight women and children. The Houthis blames the Saudi-led coalition for the attack.