Red Cross: 40 children killed in Yemen airstrike

UN condemns attack and calls for credible investigation

SAADA, Yemen－Forty children were among 51 people killed in a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen, the Red Cross said in a new toll on Tuesday.

Fifty-six children were also among the 79 people wounded in the Thursday strike on Saada province, a rebel stronghold that borders Saudi Arabia, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

The new casualty toll came after a mass funeral was held for many of the dead children on Monday at which thousands vented anger against Riyadh and Washington.

Mourners raised pictures of the children and shouted slogans against Saudi Arabia and its ally and key arms supplier, the United States.

Wooden coffins, most with a picture of a child, were taken by cars and carried by pallbearers to a graveyard from a square where prayers were held earlier. "Death to America, death to Israel", the crowd chanted, echoing the Houthis' slogan.

The shrouded bodies were removed from the coffins and placed in a row of unmarked graves that had been dug on Friday.

"My son went to the market to run house errands and then the enemy airstrike happened and he was hit by shrapnel and died," said Fares al-Razhi, mourning his 14-year-old son.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 as Houthi rebel fighters closed in on the last bastion of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's government.

The conflict has killed thousands of people since then, the vast majority of them civilians, and caused the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

The coalition said on Friday it would investigate the strike after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and called on a "credible" investigation into the deadly strike.

'Legitimate' raid

But on Saturday, state news agency SPA said Riyadh's mission to the world body delivered a message to Guterres reiterating that the raid was "legitimate" and targeted Houthi leaders "responsible for recruiting and training young children".

"War can't be a clean operation unfortunately," UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told reporters in Dubai when asked about the Saada attack. "But I will say all parties need to accept their part in what they are doing today."

Human rights groups have criticized them over coalition airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians at hospitals, schools and markets.

A US military spokeswoman said US forces were not involved in Thursday's airstrike. The US State Department urged the alliance to "conduct a thorough and transparent investigation".

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday he has dispatched a three-star general to Riyadh to "look into what happened".

The UN special envoy to Yemen has been shuttling between the warring parties ahead of holding consultations in Geneva on Sept 6 to try to end the conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished Arab country to the verge of starvation, according to the United Nations.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled al-Yamani said on the Al-Hadath channel on Monday that his government welcomed the Geneva talks.

AFP-Reuters