Saudi-UAE Air Raids Kill Dozens in Yemen, Including 22 Children

Yemen's Houthi forces said air raids by the Saudi-UAE military alliance killed dozens of civilians, most of them children.

According to the Houthi movement's Al Masirah TV, 22 children and four women died on Thursday as fighter jets targeted a camp for internally displaced people in Ad Durayhimi, which lies about 20 km from the Red Sea city of Hodaida, Al Jazeera reported.

The reported attack comes two weeks after a coalition air strike on a school bus which killed 40 students.

Backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015 as part of a military campaign to reinstate the ousted government of Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Hussein al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi activist based in Sanaa, said the death toll in Thursday's air raids stood at 31, citing a medical source.  

"The Saudi strikes at first targeted a village in the Ad Durayhimi area south of Hodaida, killing five people and injuring another two," he told Al Jazeera.

Bukhaiti said 26 women and children had come under attack before boarding a bus in an attempt to flee, but a "second Saudi-UAE strike targeted that bus, killing everyone."

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from neighboring Djibouti, said the latest reports of civilian deaths will likely lead to calls for an investigation.

"The reports we're getting from journalists in Yemen all point in a similar direction and that is at least 20 children—certainly a number of children—have been killed in the coalition attack," he said.   

>Ruinous War

Last year, the United Nations added the Saudi-UAE military coalition to a blacklist of child rights violators for causing the deaths and injuries of hundreds of children in Yemen.

On August 9, an air attack by the Saudi-UAE coalition hit a school bus in the Houthi-controlled province of Saada, killing 51 people, including 40 children.

According to munitions experts, a US-made bomb was used in the attack on the school bus, leading to further criticism over Washington's role in the war in Yemen, described by the UN as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"If it's proved again that in this instance it was a missile from the US fired by the Saudi-led coalition, that will lead to greater calls and questioning of the US' intervention and involvement in Yemen," said Fisher.

According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed in the three-year war, a death toll that has not been updated in years and is certain to be far higher.