SANAA: Large crowds gathered in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Wednesday to mourn the deaths of dozens of people killed last week in strikes blamed on Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis said a Saudi strike on Saturday hit the village of alShariya, outside the capital, killing 44 people, including 21 children, and injuring 40 others.
After prayers, the funeral procession took the bodies to al-Shariya for burial. In the village, residents mourned their friends and relatives, with many breaking into tears.
In Sanaa, mourners prayed at the city’s Mosque of the People formerly the Saleh Mosque, but renamed by the Houthis after they took over the capital and chanted ‘Death to America! Death to Israel! Men and boys in white and brown-olive robes, some bearingrifles and traditional daggers, stood by the coffins near the mosque.
Draped in white cloth, the caskets bore the photographs and names of those killed.
The group’s Almasirah television reported another strike as emergency personnel headed to the site to dig out survivors.
Meanwhile, Yemeni security sources reported Houthi strikes late Wednesday in Aden, the seat of the country’s internationally recognised government, saying they had targeted camps belonging to forces fighting the Houthis.
The two Yemeni security sources told AFP that two missiles had targeted a camp of the Saudi-led coalition in Aden’s west, while a third projectile, which they later identified as a drone, targeted another camp belonging to Yemeni forces in the city’s centre, adding that it was intercepted.
Missiles intercepted Separately, Saudi air defences intercepted Houthi missiles launched towards the Riyadh region for the second consecutive day onWednesday, according to the Saudiled military coalition. The coalition said the Houthis launched three cruise missiles that were destroyed.
The Houthis, which controls most of the populous parts of Yemen, has intensified attacks on Riyadh in recent days.
Last month, a Houthi attack on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killed 13 people and wounded more than 300.
The victims are among the latest casualties of a resumption in fighting that began over the summer, which the UN says has killed more than 1,600 people and displaced more than 300,000 in Yemen.
Twenty-six people have been killed in Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia since hostilities resumed.
Yemen has been reeling from war since 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa, with a Saudi-led coalition entering the conflict a year later in support of the government.
In July, a fragile 2022 truce fell apart after the Houthis allowed an Iranian plane to land in the capital in defiance of Saudi control over Yemeni airspace.-Agencies