20 killed, 40 wounded in air raid at wedding ceremony

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April 23, 2018 10:45 AM

At least 20 people were killed and 40 others wounded in an air raid on a wedding party in Yemen, rescue teams told AFP on Monday.

Huthi rebels who control most of northern Yemen blamed the Sunday attack on a Saudi-led Arab coalition that backs the country's government.

Rescue teams said the wedding was taking place in the Huthi-controlled Bani Qais area of Hajjah province, north of Sanaa, when jets carried out the raid.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Twitter that a hospital it supports in Hajjah received at least 40 patients wounded in the air strikes.

"Medical teams are working around the clock to provide assistance to the victims," MSF said.

A local official told AFP that at least 23 civilians, including women and children, were killed and 36 others wounded in the attack.

The double air strike on the crowded party venue had left a number of dead bodies buried under rubble, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The Huthi-run Al-Masirah Television tweeted that at least 33 people were killed and as many as 55 wounded in the attack.

It said an unspecified number of children and women were among those killed, in addition to at least 30 children wounded.

The Saudi-led coalition's spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.

It was not the first deadly strike on a wedding during Yemen's conflict, which has killed nearly 10,000 people since the coalition intervened in March 2015 to battle the Iran-backed Huthis and restore Yemen's internationally recognised government to power.

In late 2015, coalition air strikes on two wedding parties in northern Yemen killed at least 159 civilians.

Violence has also hit funerals. In October 2016, 140 mourners were killed during an air strike on a house in Sanaa.

Yemen's conflict has sparked what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

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