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An air strike by a Saudi-led military coalition killed 26 people at a hotel and an adjoining market in Yemen’s northern Saadah province on Wednesday, according to medics and a Reuters witness.
The attack, which struck the Sahar district of the vast territory that borders Saudi Arabia, demolished the budget hotel and reduced market stalls outside to a heap of twisted sheet metal. Medics retrieved corpses from the rubble.
The military alliance led by Saudi Arabia has launched thousands of air strikes against Yemen’s armed Houthi movement, which hails from Saadah and now controls much of the country.
The coalition said in a statement carried on state news agency SPA that it was looking into media reports of the strike and would release its findings after a comprehensive review.
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The 2½-year war effort has yet to achieve its goal of restoring to power the internationally recognised government, but the conflict has unleashed one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and killed at least 10,000 people.
Saudi Arabia and its allies, which receive logistical and intelligence help from the United States, accuse the Houthis of being a proxy of Iran.
The Houthi group denies those charges and says it is conducting a patriotic resistance against outside aggressors in thrall to the West. – Reuters