At least 55 Yemenis martyred in Saudi strikes on hospital, fishing harbor in Hudaydah

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): At least 55 people have been killed after warplanes of the Saudi-led military coalition hit a hospital and a fishing harbor in Yemen’s western province of Hudaydah.

Yemen’s Health Ministry said the Thursday brutal strikes also left at least 130 wounded, some in critical condition.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, citing its correspondent, reported that Saudi-led jets struck al-Thorah Hospital in the provincial capital Hudaydah and a fishing port in the province almost simultaneously.

According to the correspondent, the death toll was expected to rise due to the magnitude of the airstrikes, particularly on the hospital.

The report also said that the attacked hospital had launched an urgent appeal for Yemeni citizens to donate blood.

On Wednesday, at least nine fishermen were killed after Saudi-led warplanes targeted their ship off the coast of Hudaydah.

Saudi Arabia and some 20 of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Ansarullah movement.

The offensive initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen.

The imposed war, however, has so far failed to achieve its goal, thanks to firm resistance mounted by Yemeni troops and Houthi fighters in defense of the city. The war was also launched despite warnings that it would compound the impoverished nation’s humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and the accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.

The Saudi-led aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

Several Western countries, the United States and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.


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