An air raid by an Arab coalition killed 60
people in Yemen, including inmates of a prison near the city of Hodeidah,
medical sources said.
The prison held 84 inmates when it was struck three times
late on Saturday, Hashem al-Azizi, deputy governor of the province of Hodeidah,
told Reuters.
The Saudi-led alliance that conducted the raid said it struck
a "central security building" used as a military command center by
the Houthi rebels it is fighting.
Local officials said the prison lies within a security
complex but that only prison guards were present during the air strike.
"This building is used by Houthi militia and the forces
of the deposed president as a command and control center for their military
operations," a statement by the coalition said, referring to former president
Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Houthi ally.
"The coalition forces' leadership stresses that
targeting protocols and procedures were followed fully," the
statement said.
The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Yemen's Houthi
movement since March 2015.
It wants to restore the internationally recognized president,
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was driven into exile by the Iran-allied Houthis in
late 2014.
A Reuters witness at the security complex said the building
was destroyed and medics pulled about 17 bodies away, many of them missing
limbs.
Others remained trapped under the rubble.
One of the strikes directly targeted the building, the
witness said, bringing it down over the heads of the prisoners.
Two others hit the gate of the complex and nearby administration
buildings.
The air attack was one of the deadliest among thousands of
bombings.
The attacks have largely failed to dislodge the Houthis from
the capital, Sanaa, but have repeatedly hit schools, markets, hospitals and
homes, killing many civilians.
HADI REJECTS PEACE PLAN
Rights groups have said the raids may amount to war crimes,
but an investigative body set up by the coalition largely defended its methods
in an August report, which concluded that Houthi rebels regularly deploy to
civilian sites.
The Houthis deny this, and a top official in the movement
criticized the United Nations and the United States, the Saudis' key ally and
arms supplier, for not doing enough to hold the kingdom accountable for its air
strikes.
"We condemn the position of the international community
and the U.N. for providing cover for the crimes of Saudi Arabia against
Yemenis, and they are subject to the wishes of America," Saleh al-Samad
said in a statement late on Saturday.
The bombing may signal a renewed outbreak of violence a day
after Hadi rejected a new U.N. peace proposal, saying the deal would only be a
path to more war and destruction.
Speaking after a meeting with U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh
Ahmed in Riyadh, Hadi said the agreement would "reward the rebels and
penalize the Yemeni people and legitimacy", according to the
government-controlled Saba news agency.
According to a copy of the proposal seen by Reuters, the plan
would sideline Hadi and set up a government of less divisive figures.
Hadi's opponents accuse him of commanding only a small
support base in Yemen and of being unable to bring its warring factions
together, since he invited the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in the civil
war.
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