Just two days after killing 10 children at a Yemeni school, the Saudi-led coalition on Monday attacked a Doctors Without Border-run hospital in Yemen's northern Hajja province, killing at least 11 people and wounding 13.
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A stringer for Reuters at the scene of the attack in the Abs district said medics could not immediately evacuate the wounded because warplanes continued to fly over the area and first responders feared more bombings. The Saudi-led coalition has been accused of carrying out "double tap" airstrikes, targeting those trying to rescue victims of an earlier attack.
Doctors Without Border, also known as MSF, confirmed that an airstrike had hit its facility and said that at least 11 people have been killed. “Abs hospital has been supported by MSF since July 2015 and since then 4,611 patients have been treated at the facility,” a statement said.
“At time of strike, there were 23 patients in surgery, 25 in maternity ward, 13 newborns, and 12 in pediatrics at MSF-supported Abs hospital,” the statement said. The medical aid group said it provided GPS coordinates for its facility to the Saudi-led coalition in order to avoid such attacks.
The news comes a day after MSF and the United Nations said the Saudi coalition attacked a school on Saturday in neighboring Saada province, killing 10 children.
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Saudi Arabia said the school it targeted was a “training camp” for child soldiers, suggesting it was not the coalition’s responsibility that children were killed. "When jets target training camps, they cannot distinguish between ages," Coalition spokesperson General Ahmed Assiri told AFP.
More than 6,400 people have been killed, over half of them are civilians, since the Saudi-led coalition began its assault on Yemen in March 2015. The coalition of Arab states intervened in the country after Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and ejected the internationally recognized government.
MSF said in May that at least 100 staff members, patients and caretakers were killed, and another 130 were wounded, in aerial bombing and shelling attacks on more than 80 MSF-supported and run health structures in 2015 and early 2016. The Houthis have also been accused of attacking such civilian facilities.
The latest attack comes after the U.S. government approved another US$1.5 billion in arms sales to the Saudi kingdom.