A bus full of civilians was destroyed when the Saudi–led coalition targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen's port city of Hodeida. The latest bombing comes months after a coalition airstrike killed 40 children on a school trip.
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At least 17 people were killed and 20 injured in a Saudi-led airstrike on Yemen's Hodeida on Saturday. The attack presumably targeted a Houthi rebel checkpoint in the city's Jebel Ras area, but instead destroyed a bus full of civilians, medical sources said. Other reports said another bus was also hit during the bombing.
"The final toll is not determined yet because body parts of many victims are mixed with each other," said spokesman for the rebel-controlled Health Ministry Youssef al-Hadari.
Many of the wounded were reported to be in critical condition.
Witnesses cited by the DPA news agency said that the victims were attempting to flee the fighting in the port city, where the forces allied with the Saudi coalition have been trying to dislodge the rebels since June. Hodeida plays a key role for supplying food to Yemen civilians, as 80 percent of all imports and aid enter the country through its port.
Saudi-led troops attack Hodeida
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Saudis pledge investigation
A coalition spokesman said that the Saudi-led forces would probe the incident.
"We take this report very seriously and it will be fully investigated as all reports of this nature are," he said. "While this is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further."
A similar Saudi-led airstrike in August killed 51 people, including 40 children who were taking a bus for a school trip. The attack triggered global outrage and accusations of a war crime. While Riyadh eventually acknowledged "mistakes" over the attack, coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki later denied it was a war crime and disputed numerous sources who stated the victims were children.
Going to school in wartime
With several countries in the Middle East in the grip of conflicts, children there are not only in danger but often miss out on schooling. Efforts are made to keep lessons going, even under dire conditions.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Lessons continue despite destruction
These girls are attending a class at their school in the Yemeni port city of Hedeidah despite the fact that a wall has been almost completely taken out by a Saudi-led air strike. The country has been enmeshed in a bloody civil war for three years now, and the conflict shows no sign of ending. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2015.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Learning in a barn
Syria is another country in the Middle East wracked by civil conflict, with millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the displaced children are seen here being taught in a barn for lack of school buildings in the rebel-held area of Daraa in southern Syria. Chairs are also in short supply, meaning several of the children have been forced to sit on stones instead.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Failed deal
Although Iran and Russia, which both back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, made a deal with rebel backer Turkey to make Eastern Ghouta a "de-escalation zone" from July, the agreement has been repeatedly violated. This school in the Eastern Ghouta village of Hamouria did not escape damage, and humanitarian workers have warned of a dire situation inside the enclave.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Almohibany
Makeshift school
Syrian children are seen here attending classes in improvised conditions in a rebel-held area of the southern city of Daraa. Although many countries are determined that children in Syria should not become a "lost generation" for lack of schooling, the war is making it difficult and sometimes impossible for lessons to continue.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Return to normality amid signs of war
This wall at a school in the Syrian village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, is full of bullet holes from the war. The extremist group "Islamic State" closed the school and many others in northern Syria when it took over the region in 2014. Now it has been driven out, children can go back to learning normal subjects instead of the extremist propaganda taught by the hardline Islamists.
Image: Reuters/Z. Bensemra
Games amid ruins
"Where do the children play?" British singer Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name of Cat Stevens, once asked in a song. These children have found their playground in this damaged school in al-Saflaniyeh in eastern Aleppo province. But one can only wish they had nicer, and safer, surroundings for their games.
