Yemen rebels say more than 100 killed in Sanaa air strikes

SANAA: Saudi-led air strikes on a funeral in Sanaa on Saturday killed more than 100 people and wounded more than 500, the rebels in control of the Yemeni capital said.

"The toll is very high: more than 520 wounded and more than 100 martyrs," health ministry spokesman Tamim al-Shami told rebel television channel Almasirah.

He sais the toll was likely to rise further as there were "charred human remains" that have yet to be identified and many people unaccounted for following the strikes on a building where mourners had gathered in southern Sanaa.

There was no independent confirmation of the toll. Senior health ministry official Nasser al-Argaly earlier gave a toll of 82 killed and 534 wounded.

Witnesses said hundreds of people were attending the funeral of the father of a rebel interior minister Jalal al-Rowaishan when the building was hit.

The Huthis did not say if Rowaishan was present in the building at the time of the attack which they dubbed a "massacre" nor did they indicate if other senior figures were attending the funeral.

The Iran-backed Huthis swept into Sanaa in September 2014 and advanced across much of Yemen, forcing the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee Sanaa.

More than 6,700 people -- most of them civilians -- have been killed in Yemen since the coalition intervened in support of Hadi in March last year, according to the United Nations.The UN has put the death toll in the 18-month war at more than 10,000, many of them civilians. Dozens of emaciated children are also fighting for their lives in Yemen’s hospital wards, as fears grow that the war and a sea blockade are creating famine conditions in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest country.

More than half of Yemen’s 28 million people are already short of food, the UN has said, and children are particularly badly hit, with hundreds of thousands at risk of starvation. There are 370,000 children enduring severe malnutrition that weakens their immune system, according to Unicef, and 1.5 million are going hungry.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in support of Yemen´s internationally recognised government denied carrying out air strikes on a funeral in Sanaa which rebels said killed more than 100 people on Saturday.

The coalition said in a statement that it had no operations at the location and "other causes" for the incident must be considered.

It said the alliance "has in the past avoided such gatherings and (they) have never been a subject of targeting."--

Witnesses described a scene of carnage, with charred or mutilated bodies strewn around. Ambulances raced to carry the wounded to hospitals, which sent out urgent appeals for blood.

A spokesman for Yemen´s Houthi group condemned the strike as an act of savagery.

“The aggression continues to shed blood in an uncommon savagery and with international collusion that reaches the level of direct participation,” the Houthi-run Saba news agency quoted the group´s spokesman, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, as saying in a statement. At least two local officials were among the dead.

It was not immediately clear if Roweishan was in the hall when the strike happened. Roweishan had sided with the Iran-aligned Houthi movement when President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled Yemen after the Houthis advanced on his headquarters in the southern port city of Aden in March 2015.

The Saudi-led coalition has been providing air support for Hadi´s forces in a civil war that has killed more than 10,000 people since March 2015 and displaced more than three million.