Saudi-led coalition air strike kills at least 20 in Yemen wedding

At least 20 people, including the bride, were killed as an air strike hit a wedding party in northern Yemen 

Patients treated at a hospital in Hajja in Yemen following an ai strike during a wedding. (Photo: Reuters)
Patients treated at a hospital in Hajja in Yemen following an ai strike during a wedding. (Photo: Reuters)

At least 20 people, including a bride, were killed when an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, health officials have said.

The dead were mostly women and children gathered in a tent set up for the wedding in the Bani Qayis district, according to Khaled al-Nadhri, the leading health official in the north-western Hajjah province.

Hospital chief Mohammed al-Sawmali said the groom and 45 other wounded people were brought to the local al-Jomhouri hospital.

Ali Nasser al-Azib, the deputy head of al-Jomhouri hospital, said 30 children were among the wounded, some in critical condition with shrapnel wounds and severed limbs.

Footage that emerged from the scene of the airstrike shows scattered body parts and a young boy in a green shirt hugging a man’s lifeless body, screaming and crying.

Health ministry spokesman Abdel-Hakim al-Kahlan said ambulances were initially unable to reach the site of the bombing for fear of subsequent airstrikes as the jets continued to fly overhead after the initial strike.

This was the third deadly airstrike in Yemen in recent days. Another airstrike on Sunday night hit a house elsewhere in Hajja, killing an entire family of five, according to al-Nadhri.

UN officials and rights groups accused the coalition of committing war crimes and of being responsible for most of the killings. Airstrikes have hit weddings, busy markets, hospitals and schools.

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed and tens of thousands wounded in three years of war in Yemen.