Death toll in Yemen prison airstrike rises to 23 with 7 still missing, says Houthi
Rescuers in Yemen pulled more bodies from the rubble Wednesday of a prison run by Iran-backed Houthi rebels that was hit in a deadly airstrike earlier this week, as an escalation between the rebels and a Saudi-led coalition threatened Yemen's fragile ceasefire.
The renewed fighting is also threatening global oil shipments as the Houthis target shipping and oil infrastructure that's helping keep oil flowing through the Red Sea while the US-Iran war has throttled shipments through the key Strait of Hormuz on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula.
The prison in Hazm, the Jawf provincial capital, collapsed on Monday when coalition strikes hit the area, killing at least 23 people, including the four whose bodies were found on Wednesday.
It wasn't immediately known how many people were in the prison at the time of the strikes, which also left seven injured.
Following the strike on Monday, the Houthis retaliated on Tuesday with attacks on southern Saudi cities. The coalition early Wednesday responded with more airstrikes, targeting Houthi military facilities in Jawf and Marib provinces.
Hassan Saboula, director of Jawf's civil defence agency, said a child was among the 23 killed on Monday and that rescue teams were still searching for seven missing from the attack.
The identities of those killed have yet to be determined, al-Masirah satellite news channel cited Saboula as saying. Among the seven injured was a woman who was visiting her husband, said Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.
In a statement Wednesday, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the prison strike was carried out by an F15-SA Saudi aircraft. He said the aircraft took off from King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, the kingdom's fifth-largest city, at 4:30 pm on Monday, hit the prison and returned to the base 15 minutes later.
The Saudi Government didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The rebels said they targeted the base on Tuesday, as part of their strikes on several cities in southern Saudi Arabia. Yemen plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognised Government to flee southward and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemen war the following year in an attempt to restore the Government. The war has killed at least 150,000 people, according to UN estimates, and at times pushed the country to the brink of famine.
