{"id":11034,"date":"2018-08-10T09:23:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T09:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11034"},"modified":"2018-08-10T09:23:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T09:23:30","slug":"where-are-my-brothers-pleads-yemen-school-bus-attack-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=11034","title":{"rendered":"‘Where are my brothers?’ pleads Yemen school bus attack survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Grief and anger has gripped Yemen<\/a>‘s war-ravaged province of Saada a day after the Saudi-UAE military alliance, backed by the US,\u00a0bombed a school bus carrying children heading to a Quran class.<\/p>\n

Al Masirah, a pro-Houthi TV network, said at least\u00a050 people, including dozens of children, were killed in the attack<\/a> which struck the bus\u00a0as it was approaching a crowded market in Dahyan city.<\/p>\n

Johannes Bruwer,\u00a0the head of a delegation for the International Committee of the Red Crescent (ICRC) in Yemen,\u00a0<\/span>said in a\u00a0Twitter post<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0according to local officials, 77 were also injured.<\/p>\n

“Of these, the ICRC hospital in Al Talh received 30 dead and 48 injured, of which the vast majority were children.”<\/p>\n

Mohammed Jabber Awad, the governor of Saada, told Al Jazeera that the bus was carrying 30 students, but as many as 60 people may have been killed in the raid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the ICRC, one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians in the country,\u00a0all of the children who were admitted to its hospital were under the age of 15.<\/p>\n

The Saudi-UAE alliance later issued a statement to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network saying it launched the attacks on Saada, and accused Houthi fighters of using the children as human shields.<\/p>\n

“[The air strikes] conformed to international and humanitarian laws,” a statement quoting coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said.<\/p>\n

‘Where are my brothers?’<\/h2>\n

In unverified videos uploaded to social media, bereaved parents could be seen pleading with hospital staff for updates, as dead bodies literally began piling up, on top of each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one video, a father could be seen struggling to contain his grief after he found his dead son under a heap of corpses in the boot of a Nissan pick-up truck.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a second video, one of the children who survived the attack<\/span>\u00a0refused to receive medical attention until doctors updated him on the fate of his two younger brothers.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

“I have two brothers, Hassan and Yehia, who are smaller than me,” the boy said. “Where are my brothers? … I don’t want help until I see my brothers.”<\/p>\n

Pictures from the scene of the attack showed homes and businesses detroyed, with trails of blood on the roads and UNICEF\u00a0rucksacks splattered with blood.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

“I am watching with horror the images and videos coming from Saada in #Yemen\u00a0and I have no words. How was this a military target? Why are children being killed?” tweeted Meritxell Relano,\u00a0<\/span>UNICEF’s\u00a0resident representative in\u00a0Yemen. <\/span><\/p>\n

‘Silence legitimises Saudi aggression’<\/h2>\n

Yemen’s rebel-run<\/span>\u00a0Ministry of Defense issued a statement early on Friday, saying: “The silence of the international community legitimised [the Saudi-UAE alliance’s] continuing aggression and brutality.<\/span><\/p>\n

“By staying silent about these crimes, they are accomplices in the deaths of women and children.”<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi activist, told Al Jazeera that the\u00a0death toll was expected to rise.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Most of the hospitals and clinics in Saada have either been completely destroyed or are badly damaged, and most lack basic medicines. So how will they treat them?” he said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said this latest attack would enrage Yemenis who are already aggrieved over the rising civilian death toll.<\/p>\n

“The Saudis tend to deny these kinds of actions, which have sadly become all too common,” he said. “It’s all too rare for either party [the alliance or the Houthis] to take responsibility”.<\/p>\n

With logistical support from the US,\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0UAE<\/a>\u00a0have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015. The war effort is ostensibly an attempt to reinstate the internationally recognised government of President\u00a0 Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Hadi and his forces were overrun by Houthi rebels who took over much of the country, including Sanaa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, dozens of\u00a0people – including women and children – were\u00a0killed in\u00a0Yemen’s\u00a0Red Sea port city of Hodeidah<\/a>\u00a0in mortar attacks believed to be carried out by the Saudi-UAE\u00a0alliance.<\/p>\n

According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed in the three-year war – a death toll that has not been updated in years and is certain to be far higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In June, Saudi and UAE forces carried out 258 air raids on\u00a0Yemen, nearly one-third of which targeted non-military sites.<\/p>\n

The Yemen Data Project listed 24 air raids on residential areas, three on water and electricity sites, three hitting healthcare facilities, and one targeting an IDP camp.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grief and anger has gripped Yemen’s war-ravaged province of Saada a day after the Saudi-UAE military alliance, backed by the US,\u00a0bombed a school bus carrying children heading to a Quran class. Al Masirah, a pro-Houthi TV network, said at least\u00a050 people, including dozens of children, were killed in the attack which struck the bus\u00a0as it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}