A Saudi-led coalition
air strike in Yemen killed nine members of the same family, including several
children, on Sunday in the southwestern rebel-held city of Ibb, witnesses and
medics said. Eleven neighbors were also wounded when the family's house, on the
southern edge of the mountain city, was hit during a night of intense air
strikes, witnesses said.
Medics at the city's
main hospital confirmed they had received nine bodies, including those of women
and children. The house was next to a vocational college that Iran-backed
Houthi rebels have converted into a
military base and arms depot, witnesses said.
The air strikes came
amid growing international criticism of the Arab coalition over the mounting
toll of civilian casualties in its campaign against the rebels.
Houthi rebels and
troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control Ibb and swathes of
Yemeni territory including the capital Sanaa, which they seized in September
2014. Since the coalition intervened in March last year, government forces have
managed to push rebels out of five southern provinces, including the port city
of Aden.
More than 6,000 people
have been killed in Yemen since the start of the Saudi-led campaign, more than
half of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
The UN warned on Friday
of rising civilian casualties, saying that 180 people were killed and 268
injured in August, a 40 percent rise on the previous month. On Wednesday, at
least 20 civilians died in air strikes on the rebel-held Red Sea city of Hodeida
that the coalition said targeted "Houthi leaders". UN chief Ban
Ki-moon condemned the strikes on Hodeida, calling for "urgent measures to
protect civilians and civilian infrastructure".