Red Cross says strike hit bus at market in Dahyan, in rebel-held north of country

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Saudi Arabia is facing an international outcry after at least 29 children were among dozens of civilians killed by a US-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a bus in Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held north.

The attack was the latest coalition bombing raid to hit civilians; previous airstrikes have hit markets, schools and hospitals. Humanitarian workers on the ground said the latest incident must shake the world’s conscience about atrocities committed continuing during Yemen’s deadlocked three-year war.

Save the Children, quoting its staff on the ground, said the children were on a bus heading back to school from a picnic at the time of the attack when the driver stopped to get a drink at the market in Dahyan, in Sa’ada governorate.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians in war-torn Yemen, said its team at an ICRC-supported hospital in Sa’ada had received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old. It also received 48 wounded people, including 30 children, it said.

“Under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict,” the ICRC tweeted.

Abdul-Ghani Sareeh, from the Sa’ada health department, told Reuters the attack had killed 43 people and wounded 63.

The attack was condemned by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, who called for “an independent and prompt investigation”.



“The secretary general emphasises that all parties must take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations,” said a spokesman for Guterres.

The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV broadcast unverified footage of dead and bloodied children, many still carrying their blue Unicef rucksacks, being transferred to a hospital.

In a statement carried by the official Saudi press agency, the Saudi-led coalition called the strike a “legitimate military action” targeting elements responsible for a Houthi missile attack on the Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday. “[The airstrikes] conformed to international and humanitarian laws,” the statement said. It accused the Iran-aligned Houthis of using children as human shields.

The coalition, also backed by the UAE, launched a military intervention in Yemen in 2015 aimed at countering the advances of the Houthi rebels, who are viewed by Riyadh as Iranian proxies, and reinstating the ousted president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The International Rescue Committee said it was appalled by Thursday’s incident and called for an inquiry.

The IRC’s Yemen country director, Frank McManus, said: “Today should be the day the world wakes up to the atrocities going on in Yemen … a bus full of school children cannot be viewed as mere collateral damage. Even wars have rules, but rules without consequences mean nothing. If there is any chance of innocent lives, especially those of children, being lost in an attack, that attack should not take place.”

Unicef’s regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, asked: “Does the world really need more innocent children’s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A doctor treats an injured child. Photograph: Naif Rahma/Reuters

In Washington, a state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called for the coalition to investigate the incident.

“We are certainly concerned about the reports that there was an attack that resulted in the deaths of civilians,” she said. “We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident.”

Recent fighting in Yemen has focused on the port city of Hodeidah, through which most of Yemen’s aid and food arrives.



Saudi and UAE forces have advanced towards Hodeidah, which is held by the Houthis, prompting an intensification of Houthi missile attacks on Saudi targets. Two Houthi missile attacks on oil tankers off the Yemeni coast in recent weeks led to Saudi Arabia temporarily suspending oil shipments through the strategic shipping lane of Bab al-Mandeb.

The Saudi-led coalition was accused of carrying out airstrikes on 2 August near a fish market and hospital in Hodeidah that killed 55 people and injured 130 more.

The UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that since June, when fighting around Hodeidah escalated, its partners in the area had registered 50,500 displaced households.

“So many people have died in Yemen – this conflict has to stop,” said Lise Grande, the UN’s Yemen humanitarian coordinator.

Helen Lackner, author of Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State , said any escalation of war in Hodeidah would be catastrophic.

“From the humanitarian point of view, [any escalation of war in Hodaidah city] will be a disaster. It will cause massive worsening of disease, cholera, of death, or hunger,” she said. “The remaining population in Hodaideh, which must be at least 400,000 people, are going to have an extremely bad time because street-by-street fighting plus airstrikes on low-quality cement buildings is going to be really damaging.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Smoke rises after an airstrike over Yemen. Photograph: Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters

The coalition has been criticised for repeatedly targeting civilian areas, including markets and hospitals, during the conflict, which has claimed more than 10,000 lives and left millions of people on the brink of starvation.

UN envoy confirms first Yemen peace talks in two years Read more

It carried out 258 airstrikes on Yemen in June alone, nearly a third of which hit residential areas, according to the Yemen Data Project, an independent group collecting statistics about the conflict.

The situation in Yemen has been described as the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis. Between January and May, aid agencies helped 7.5 million people, the OCHA said this month. The Houthis also stand accused of causing civilian deaths.

According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the UK has licensed £4.7bn worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia since 2015, including £2.7bn worth of aircraft, helicopters, and drones, and £1.9bn worth of weapons systems such as grenades, bombs and missiles.

Andrew Smith, from the organisation, said: “This atrocity cannot be ignored. The UK government has been utterly complicit in the destruction. It has armed and supported the Saudi-led coalition right from the start. The death toll has spiralled and the humanitarian crisis has only got worse, and yet the arms sales have continued.”

Fabian Hamilton, the shadow minister for peace and disarmament, called on Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt to suspend all arms export licences to Saudi Arabia until a ceasefire is agreed in Yemen. “The idea that British weapons could have been used in this attack, in which innocent children have died, is sickening,” he said.</s>The Saudi-led coalition of Gulf States waging war on rebel forces in Yemen has opened an investigation into an airstrike that killed 40 children at a market yesterday.

Authorities in the north-western city of Sa'dah said 51 people died after the airstrike hit a bus carrying children from summer camp.

They said a further 79 people were injured - including 59 children.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the majority of those killed were under the age of ten.

One of the hospitals the ICRC supports received "the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old" in addition to 48 injured people, including 30 children.

The wreckage of the bus at the site of the coalition airstrike in Saada, Yemen, 10-08-2018. Image: AP Photo/Kareem al-Mrrany

Last night, UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the attack and expressed his "deepest condolences to the families of the victims."

A spokesperson said Mr Guterres had called on all parties to "their obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the fundamental rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack."

"The Secretary-General emphasizes that all parties must take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations," he said.

Mr Gutterres called for an " independent and prompt investigation" into the attack.

He urged all parties to "de-escalate and to engage constructively in the political process" and warned that inclusive talks between both Yemeni sides in the conflict remains the only way to bring an end the bloodshed.

Fighting between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the ousted Yemeni government – supported by a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states – has been ongoing in the region for three years.

An injured child rests in a hospital a day after an airstrike in Saada, Yemen, 10-08-2018. Image: AP Photo/Kareem al-Mrrany

Yesterday, State-owned media in Saudi Arabia claimed that a number of Houthi leaders were killed in the airstrike.

The official spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Colonel Turki al-Malki insisted the attack was a "legitimate military action" targeting those responsible for launching a rocket attack on the Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday night.

He said the strike was "implemented in accordance with international humanitarian law and customary rules."

He said the strike had targeted Houthi militia members who were inside the bus, accusing them of using children as "tools and covers for their terrorist acts."

This afternoon, a senior coalition official said a probe had been opened up into what he called the "collateral damage" to the bus during the attack.

This image taken from video shows children injured in the airstrike being treated at a hospital in Saada, Yemen, 09-08-2018.</s>An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen on Thursday morning killed at least 50 people including dozens of children traveling on a bus in the country's Saada Province, local health officials said.The International Committee of the Red Cross said its medical teams received the bodies of 29 children, all under the age of 15. They also received 48 injured people, including 30 children, the ICRC said.Yemen's rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired footage of injured children weeping as blood streamed down their faces. Some of the children carried blue UNICEF backpacks, spotted with blood.Col. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which has the backing of the U.S. government, said the coalition had launched an operation in Saada in response to Houthi fighters firing a missile on the Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday evening.Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said the Saudi-led coalition had showed no regard for civilian lives by targeting a school bus in a crowded public space.Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement that U.S. Central Command was not involved in the airstrike in Saada."U.S. military support to our partners mitigates noncombatant casualties, by improving coalition processes and procedures, especially regarding compliance with the law of armed conflict and best practices for reducing the risk of civilian casualties," she said.Save the Children's staff on the ground in Saada said the children were on their way back to school from a picnic when the attack happened.Sylvia Ghaly, director of advocacy in Yemen for Save the Children, said the children were between the ages of 6 and 15."From where we sit as humanitarian actors, we don't see the military targets, we see civilians being targeted and children being killed, and at the same time we don't see anyone being held accountable for the attacks," she told ABC News. "It's not good enough to say that this was a mistake or that it was collateral damage. At the end of the day, that child has a name and that child is the son or daughter of someone who will grief for a long time."She added that Save the Children is calling for an immediate, independent investigation into the attack. Ghaly said that when she entered the province of Saada, a Houthi stronghold, many buildings had basically been reduced to rubble.Meritxell Relano, UNICEF's representative in Yemen, said children of Yemen face a bleak future."The future of the children of Yemen is dark," she told ABC News. "Right now, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel -- no peace, no agreement, no cessation of hostilities. An entire generation of children will be lost and how will this country be reconstructed in the future?"Yemen is one of the world's poorest countries and the war has made conditions much worse: More than 22 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and half of the country's health facilities are out of service.The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Houthis in the country since March 2015 after the Houthis took over the capital of Sanaa and forced interim president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and his government to flee the country. An Arab Sunni coalition led by Saudi Arabia then launched a war to restore Hadi's government to power -- a military campaign that is supported by the U.S. The coalition has been blamed by the United Nations for most of the civilian deaths in Yemen.</s>Aug. 10 (UPI) -- The death toll in Thursday's airstrike in Yemen has risen to 51 people as the Saudi-led coalition behind the attack plans to probe the incident and the head of the United Nations calls for an investigation investigation.

The strike, which killed 40 children when it hit a bus in a busy market area, injured 79 others, including 56 children, tweeted Johannes Bruwer, delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

On Friday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported that the country's coalition attempting to secure Yemeni President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi's return to power over Houthi rebels will investigate the attack. An unnamed official told the agency that the coalition "will, as it has always, exert all efforts to preserve civilians."

One day earlier, the Saudi-led coalition defended the airstrike, calling it a "legitimate military operation," in retaliation of a Houthi ballistic missile that targeted the Saudi province of Jizan the night before.

Saudi state media said one person died in that attack.

The Saudi coalition, which has U.S. logistic support, has carried out strikes in Yemen to reinstate the internationally recognized, but exiled, government that rebels drove into exile three years ago.

At least 10,000 people have died in the conflict, U.N. statistics show. In June alone, the coalition carried out 258 air raids on Yemen, nearly one-third of which targeted non-military sites.

After this week's airstrike, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for an independent investigation and said all parties must "respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the fundamental rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack."</s>Saudi-led Coalition Strikes School Bus In Yemen, Killing At Least 29 Children

Dozens of students were returning from a summer camp when their driver paused to grab a something at a market in Yemen's Saada province. It was there, as the students sat waiting to resume their journey home on Thursday, that a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit their school bus.

Hours later, well after the blast's violent rumble gave way to sirens and the victim's screams, a clearer sense of the human cost has emerged: At least 29 children under the age of 15, some as young as 6 years old, were killed in the attack, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Citing "local officials," the head of the international aid group's delegation in Yemen says that in total at least 50 people died and dozens more were injured.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack in a statement released by his spokesperson, saying he "expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the victims."

"The Secretary-General calls on all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the fundamental rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack," his spokesperson, Farhan Haq, said Thursday. "The Secretary-General emphasizes that all parties must take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations."

And Guterres called for a prompt independent investigation into the incident.

Saudi Arabia, the driving force behind a coalition of its Arab neighbors, saw no reason to apologize, however. In a statement released through the state-run Saudi Press Agency, Riyadh called the airstrike a "legitimate military action" conducted in accordance with international law.

The coalition's spokesperson said the operation sought to target the militants responsible for a missile intercepted over Saudi civilian territory on Wednesday. Upon interception, Saudis say the missile exploded into fragments that killed one Yemeni civilian and injured 11 other people.

"The Coalition will take all necessary measures against the terrorist, criminal acts of the terrorist Iranian-Houthi militia, such as recruiting child soldiers, throwing them in battlefields and using them as tools and covers to their terrorist acts," coalition spokesperson Col. Turki al-Malki said in a statement.

The Iran-backed Shiite militia has controlled Yemen's northwest, including Saada, since ousting the country's internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

It is with the stated aim of dislodging the Houthis, and restoring the previous government, that the Sunni coalition has waged a years-long airstrike campaign in the country with the support of the U.S. Since large-scale fighting erupted in 2015, the ensuing violence has left more than 10,000 people killed and the country's health infrastructure so badly battered, nearly 18 million Yemenis lack reliable access to food.

Norway Refugee Council Secretary-General Jan Egeland described Thursday's airstrike differently: "grotesque, shameful, indignant." He asserted that it evinces a "blatant disregard for rules of war when [a] bus carrying innocent school children is fair game for attack."

Houthi media broadcast what appears to be graphic scenes of the aftermath, depicting children drenched in blood and burned black by the blast. They wail in pain as medics attempt to treat them, standing beside boys missing limbs and gazing on with shell-shocked stares.

The frame then hovers over what appears to be a pile of bloodied bodies, unmoving.

Asked about the airstrike by the U.S.-backed coalition, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert told reporters "we are certainly concerned."

"We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident," she said.

Thursday's attack marks a grim milestone in a war that lately has seen yet another escalation, as coalition-backed Yemeni government forces have made a recent push to reclaim the key port city of Hodeidah from rebels. Just last week at least 55 people died in the city during a particularly bloody exchange of fire in residential areas and outside a hospital.

"How many more children will suffer or die before those who can act, do by putting a stop to this scourge?" UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore asked.

"It's hard to believe we live in a world where children should live in fear of such attacks, yet here we are," she added. "This doesn't have to be their reality though. Parties to the conflict and those who have influence over them, including Security Council members, can and should choose to end this catastrophe for the sake of Yemen's children."</s>An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels hit a bus in a market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 43 people, including children, and wounding as many as 63, Yemen’s rebel-run Health Ministry said.

The Saudi-led coalition, meanwhile, said it targeted the rebels, known as Houthis, who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south the previous day, killing one person.

Yemen’s rebel-run Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers.

The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold. The province lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The elders said earlier the airstrike killed at least 20 people and wounded as many as 35.

There was no breakdown in the casualties and it was not immediately clear how many of the victims were on the bus itself and how many were pedestrians in the immediate area around it. It was also unclear if there were other airstrikes in the area.

Col. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the attack in Saada targeted the rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdom’s south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesday’s projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties.

The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, also said the missile was launched “deliberately to target residential and populated areas.”

Al-Malki insisted Thursday’s attack carried out in Saada is a “legitimate military action” and is “in accordance with international humanitarian law and customs.” He also accused the Houthis of recruiting children and using them in the battlefields to cover for their actions.

Saudi Arabia backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Twitter that an ICRC supported hospital received dozens of dead and wounded following the attack that hit the bus with children.

“Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten,” the head of the ICRC in Yemen, Johannes Bruwer, said on his Twitter account, adding that the ICRC in Yemen is “sending additional supplies to hospitals to cope with the influx.”

Later on Thursday, airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and sounds of the blasts reverberated across the city’s southern and western neighborhoods. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in those strikes.

Yemen’s stalemated, three-year war has killed over 10,000 people, badly damaged Yemen’s infrastructure and crippled its health system. The coalition faces widespread international criticism for its airstrikes in Yemen that kill civilians.

Impoverished Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is now in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Last week, Yemeni medical officials said the coalition conducted airstrikes in the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, killing at least 28 people and wounding 70. But the coalition denied carrying out any attacks in the city, saying it follows a “strict and transparent approach based on the rules international law.”

The fight for the port of Hodeida, a key lifeline for supplies and aid for Yemen’s population on the brink of starvation, has become the latest battleground in the devastating war.

The Iran-aligned Houthis regularly fire into Saudi Arabia and have targeted its capital, Riyadh, with ballistic missiles. They say their missile attacks on the kingdom are in retaliation for air raids on Yemen by the Western-backed coalition.

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has been pushing to bring the warring parties to restart peace talks. He recently announced plans to invite Yemen’s warring parties to Geneva on Sept. 6 to hold the first round of consultations.</s>A Saudi-led coalition battling in Yemen said it carried out an attack in the rebel-held north on Thursday that the Red Cross said hit a bus carrying children, leaving dozens of people dead or wounded.

The coalition called the strike a "legitimate military action" that targeted Iran-backed Huthi rebels responsible for a deadly missile attack on the Saudi city of Jizan on Wednesday.

But the International Committee of the Red Cross said the strike hit a bus filled with children, causing dozens of casualties.

"Following an attack this morning on a bus driving children in Dahyan Market, northern Saada, (an ICRC-supported) hospital has received dozens of dead and wounded," the organisation said on Twitter without giving more details.

"Under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict," the ICRC added.

The Huthi rebels' Al-Masirah TV reported that 39 people had been killed and 51 wounded, "mostly children".

It was not possible to independently verify the toll.

"Does the world really need more innocent children´s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?" the UN children's agency asked.

Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said all the children on the bus were "reportedly under the age of 15".

"STOP CRUELTY AGAINST CHILDREN.. NO Excuses anymore!" the agency said.

The coalition, which also includes the United Arab Emirates, intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government after the rebels drove it out of the capital Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia shot down a missile fired by the Huthis on Wednesday, with debris killing a Yemeni man and wounding 11 others, the coalition said.

The missile was fired from the rebel-held Yemeni province of Amran towards Jizan, the coalition said.

"The coalition will take all necessary measures against the terrorist, criminal acts of the Huthi militia, such as recruiting child soldiers, throwing them in battlefields and using them as tools," coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said, referring to Thursday's attack.

The Huthis have in recent months ramped up missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, which Riyadh usually says it intercepts.

Wednesday's attack brings the tally to 165 rebel missiles launched since 2015, according to the coalition, which that year joined the Yemeni government's fight against Huthi rebels.

On August 2, attacks on a hospital and a fish market in the strategic rebel-held port city of Hodeida killed at least 55 civilians and wounded 170, according to the ICRC.

The coalition denied responsibility for those attacks.

The war in the impoverished country has left nearly 10,000 people dead and unleashed what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, told the Security Council last week that "a political solution" to end the war in Yemen was "available" and that the warring sides would be invited to talks on September 6 in Geneva.

UN-brokered negotiations on Yemen broke down in 2016 amid demands for a rebel withdrawal from key cities and power-sharing with the Saudi-backed government.</s>The Red Cross confirmed that the attack killed and injured dozens, many of whom were children under the age of 10.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF said it was “very concerned with the initial reports of children being killed” with UNICEF’s resident representative in Yemen saying that she is witnessing the “horror the images and videos coming from Saada… Why are children being killed?”

RT reports: The bus was in the Dahyan Market in northern Sa’ada, a Houthi rebel stronghold, when it was attacked on Thursday morning. “Following an attack… [an International Committee of the Red Cross-supported] hospital has received dozens of dead and wounded,” the Red Cross confirmed, adding that “under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict.”

“Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10,” said Johannes Bruwer, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen, adding that the organization is “sending additional supplies to hospitals to cope with the influx.”

Abdul-Ghani Nayeb, head of a health department in Sa’ada, told Reuters that the death toll has so far risen to 43. Some 61 are understood to be wounded. The bus was transporting civilians, including many school children, but it is not clear how many of the casualties were bus passengers and how many were pedestrians on the surrounding street.

In a statement released by state news agency SPA, the Saudi-led coalition claimed its airstrikes in Saada were aimed at missile launchers used to attack Jiza, a city in southern Saudi Arabia.

“Today’s attack in Saada was a legitimate military operation… it conformed to international and humanitarian laws,” said coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki in the statement. The statement also accused the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels of using children as human shields.

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni-Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen for more than three years against the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels. The rebels control a significant portion of northern Yemen, including the country’s capital Sana’a, which was also targeted by airstrikes later on Thursday.</s>SANAA/DUBAI/GENEVA (Reuters) - A Saudi-led Arab military coalition said on Friday it would investigate an air strike that killed dozens of children in Yemen, an apparent shift of stance on an attack Riyadh has portrayed as a legitimate action against its Houthi foes.

At least 40 children were killed in Thursday's strike on a bus in northern Yemen, the armed Houthi group which controls Yemen's capital said. That raised the toll of children killed in the raid from 29.

The strike by the Western-backed alliance of Arab countries outraged human rights groups and was strongly condemned by U.N. officials. Henrietta Fore, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF, said the "horrific" attack marked "a low point in (Yemen’s) brutal war".

People in Saada started to dig graves in preparation for funerals to be held on Saturday.

"God may give us patience," said Hussein Hussein Tayeb, who lost three sons on the bus, on a trip with other pupils to visit a mosque and tombs.

"I was one of the first to arrive on the scene, seeking to rescue the wounded; I lifted a body and I found that it was Ahmed's face. I hugged him, he was my son."

Ahmed was 11. His brothers Yusef and Ali were 14 and 9.

U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called for an independent investigation of the raid which hit the bus as it drove through a market in Dahyan, a town in the Houthis' home province of Saada.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday called for a "credible and transparent" investigation after receiving a closed-door briefing on the strike by a senior U.N. official.

A Reuters TV crew saw boys injured in the strike lying on beds in the Dahyan hospital, many with their heads wrapped. The face of one was covered in lacerations.

The Arab states carried out new air strikes on Friday, killing a girl and injuring several other people whose home was targeted in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa, the Houthis' al-Masirah TV said.

Announcing the investigation into the strike on the bus, the Saudi Press Agency quoted an alliance official as saying: "The coalition is firmly committed to investigating all claims regarding mistakes or violations of international law, to sanction those who caused these incidents and to provide assistance to the victims."

The Saudi-led Arab alliance, whose members receive Western political support and buy billions of dollars a year in arms from the United States, Britain and France, has been fighting for three years to drive out the Houthis, Iran-aligned fighters who pushed a Saudi-backed government out of the capital in 2014.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula, and the United Nations says the war has created the world's most urgent humanitarian disaster, with millions of people totally dependent on aid and at risk of famine if supply lines are cut.

The Arab states initially said the air strikes on the bus were "legitimate military action" against missile launchers, carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV cited the group's health minister Taha Mutawakil as saying that the estimated number of casualties stood at 51 killed including 40 children, and at least 79 people wounded, of whom 56 were children.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported the same toll on Friday, citing authorities in Saada. It had said on its Twitter account on Thursday that its medical team at the ICRC-supported hospital in Saada had received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old. The hospital also received 48 wounded people, among them 30 children.

Masirah TV said on Friday the Houthis had fired a number of ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, targeting Jizan and Aseer provinces which lie at the border. Saudi Arabia intercepted two missiles fired at Jizan, Al-Arabiya TV reported.

The head of the Houthis' supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, hailed Friday's call by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres for an independent investigation into the air strike.

In Paris, the French foreign ministry said France condemned the strike and backed a U.N. call to bring all parties in the war together for talks in Geneva on Sept. 6.

The Houthis have however barred without explanation the head of the U.N.'s human rights office in Yemen from returning to the country, a U.N. spokeswoman said on Friday.

Elobaid Elobaid, a Canadian citizen, had been based in Yemen since October 2016, leading 17 staff in Sanaa and 13 monitors in 11 of Yemen's governorates. His visa expired in June but was not renewed.

The U.N. human rights office has frequently accused all sides of violating international law and committing war crimes.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.</s>At least 29 children have been killed and 30 wounded in a Saudi-led coalition air strike in Yemen, the International Committee of the Red Cross says.

The children were travelling on a bus that was hit at a market in Dahyan, in the northern province of Saada.
At least 43 people, mostly children, are killed in an airstrike on a bus at a market in Dahyan, Sa'da, by the Saudi-led coalition, while more than 60 are injured. The coalition calls the strike a "legitimate military action" against the Houthis, accusing them of using children as human shields.