Yemenis collect the corpses of people killed in Saudi airstrike in Sana'a | Photo: EFE Yemenis collect the corpses of people killed in Saudi airstrike in Sana'a | Photo: EFE

12 women killed in latest Saudi airstrike on Yemen

The women were returning home from a wedding procession in the Qaramesh region on Saturday.

A dozen women have been killed in a Saudi airstrike conducted over the northern Yemeni province of Ma'rib. They were returning home from a wedding procession in the Qaramesh region on Saturday, according to al-Masirah TV.

“The aggressor (Saudi Arabia) committed a hideous crime by targeting ordinary women who were returning from a wedding,” said the father of two of the deceased women.

Human rights groups have documented several incidents where Saudi warplanes have targeted public gatherings in Yemen, including the October 8, 2016, strike on a funeral ceremony in the capital of Sana'a. The attack, which claimed the lives of 100 people and wounded 500 others, including children, has been described by Human Rights Watch as an apparent war crime.

The munition used in the attack was identified as  U.S.-manufactured air-dropped GBU-12 Paveway II 500-pound laser-guided bomb.

Since the bombing campaign against Yemen began in 2015, the United Kingdom has licensed roughly US$4.2 billion dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia, according to PressTV.

In early June, the U.S. Department of Defense also confirmed a US$750 million military sale to Saudi Arabia. It included the U.S.-made missiles, bombs, armoured personnel carriers, warships, munitions and a “blanket order training program” for Saudi security forces receiving the military equipment both inside and outside the kingdom, Reuters reported.

The bellicose mission's objective, to suppress the Houthi Ansarullah movement and, in doing so, reinstate former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, an ally to Riyadh.

Amid the bombing and devastation, which has forced more than a million to flee their homes, Yemen also faces a severe cholera outbreak that has claimed the lives of at least 2,119 people, according to Alexandre Faite, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Another eight million are on the verge of starvation.

Wolfgang Jamann, head of the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief non-governmental humanitarian agency, described the ongoing crisis in Yemen as being an absolute “shame on humanity.” The United Nations referred to it as “the world's worst humanitarian crisis.”

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(Source: telesurtv.net; December 18, 2017; http://bit.ly/2j75l8G)
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