A Saudi airstrike hit a civilian home in Yemen’s northern Saada province on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, including seven children and one woman, according to the Health Ministry within the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government, as the US-backed Saudi bombing campaign continues to have a devastating impact on Yemeni civilians.
The ministry said that another 23 people were wounded, including 12 children and 10 women. Yemen’s Al Masirah TV said the home belonged to a man named Ali al-Qahma and aired footage that shows Yemenis digging through the rubble of the home for survivors and shows some of the casualties, including children who were killed.
Health Ministry spokesman Anees al-Asbahi reported several other attacks on Sunday involving civilian casualties, including the killing of a woman and the injury of three other civilians in a Saudi airstrike in Yemen’s Ibb province. He also said that a Saudi airstrike killed one civilian in the Dhubab district of Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province.
The US has up to 200 military advisors in Saudi Arabia providing targeting and intelligence support for the Saudi air campaign and has also resumed refueling Saudi warplanes, a form of support it suspended back in 2018 due to pressure from Congress. Saudi Arabia was notorious for bombing civilian targets in its war in Yemen from 2015 to 2022 and has followed a similar pattern since it reignited the war by bombing Yemen’s Sanaa International Airport back in July.
Despite the deep US involvement, the civilian casualties in the Saudi airstrikes receive very little coverage in US and other Western media, while there’s much more attention on the civilian casualties caused by Ansar Allah attacks.
Ansar Allah strikes on the King Khalid Airport in Riyadh killed at least 14 civilians, including one US citizen, earlier this month, and it has also been accused of killing civilians in some of its attacks on Taiz, which Ansar Allah has encircled and is under siege. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government accused Ansar Allah of killing three civilians, including two women, in shelling in Taiz on Friday.
