New toll shows 40 children killed in Yemen bus attack
Forty children were among 51 people killed in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen on Thursday, the Red Cross said today. 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 in a new toll. Here's more.
Mass funeral held for dead children on Monday
The new casualty toll came after a mass funeral was held for the dead children on Monday at which thousands vented anger against Saudi Arabia and its key arms supplier, the United States.
Aid groups, analysts raised doubts over Saudi-led coalition's investigation
The child deaths have been an embarrassment for Western governments which supply the Saudi-led coalition with warplanes and other weapons and have sought to prevent the conduct of the war being scrutinized too closely. The coalition has promised an internal inquiry but analysts and aid groups have voiced doubt it is ready to provide the transparency and accountability demanded by the wider international community.
UN had called for transparent investigation into the deadly strike
The Saudi-led coalition had intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognized government to power and push back the Houthis, an Islamic religious-political-armed movement, who still hold Yemen's capital Sana'a. The conflict has killed nearly 10,000 people since then, the vast majority of them civilians. The UN Security Council called on Friday for a "credible" investigation into the deadly strike.
The coalition had been often blamed for unnecessary civilian deaths
The coalition has been repeatedly blamed for bombing civilians, including a strike on a wedding hall in the Red Sea coastal town of Mokha in September 2015, in which 131 people died. It, however, denied any responsibility for those deaths.
Coalition commanders say rebels use civilians as human shields
In Oct'16, a Saudi-led coalition air strike killed 140 people at a funeral in Sana'a. Though coalition commanders have admitted a small number of "mistakes", there has been no public disciplinary action. Commanders have accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields. The coalition called the bus strike a "legitimate military action" in response to a rebel attack on Saudi's Jizan last Wednesday.
Saudi-led coalition isn't the only one which caused collateral damage
During US-led air campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria since 2001, Western forces occasionally admitted collateral damage when civilians were killed unintentionally. But they too resisted independent investigations into the circumstances of major errors.
