Saudi-led air strike kills 29 in Yemen

A Saudi-led coalition air strike killed 29 people at a crowded marketplace in the heartland of the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in northern Yemen yesterday, Huthi health authorities said.

The coalition, which has faced repeated international criticism over civilian casualties, did not immediately confirm or deny that it was behind the attack in Saada governorate.

Residents at the scene picked through the remnants of stalls, some still smouldering, reduced to spindly metal frames and scattered wreckage, AFP photos showed.

The charred bodies of the victims, many of their faces disfigured beyond recognition, were laid on white body bags for families to identify in the courtyard of a hospital morgue.

The health service said 29 people were killed and 17 others wounded, while the Huthi-run Saba news agency gave a lower toll of 21 dead, all of them civilians. Saba accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out the raid in the Sahar district.

The alliance did not respond to requests for comment. But it enforces an air blockade on rebel-held territory and is the only force whose warplanes are known to operate in Yemen's north along the Saudi border.

The United Nations blacklisted the coalition in October for killing and maiming children, drawing fresh calls from rights groups to step up pressure on Riyadh over the conflict.