Saudi Airstrikes on Saada Market Kill Dozens of Civilians

Strikes Hit Crowded Marketplace in Shi'ite Northern Yemen

Saudi warplanes have attacked northern Yemen’s Sadaa Province, the Shi’ite-dominated home of the Houthi movement,  hitting a crowded marketplace in the Shada District, killing at least 25 civilians and wounding an unknown number of others.

This is the latest in a series of Saudi airstrikes against Yemen over the past two-plus years that hit civilian targets, with such incidents killing thousands of people and fueling international criticism of growing human rights violations and outright war crimes.

Saudi officials have not offered a statement on this latest attack yet, which is not unusual as they tend only to offer statements in the rare cases that media coverage starts to get uncomfortable heavy. Even then, the statement tends to be a blanket denial that anything ever happened.

It is such civilian casualties, however, that have also fueled growing opposition to US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and over the past week such a vote just narrowly failed in the US Senate. As the killing continues, future efforts to curb the sales in Congress are likely to continue to get even stronger.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.