{More than 40 people including women and children have been shot dead aboard a boat carrying Somali refugees in the Red Sea off war-torn Yemen, officials said.}<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.<\/p>\n
The refugees were hit by light weapons fire in waters off rebel-held Hodeida, but the boat managed to dock in the city’s port, an official there said.<\/p>\n
The International Organization for Migration, which has operations in Yemen, said 42 bodies had been recovered.<\/p>\n
The port official said dozens of Somalis who survived the attack, as well as three Yemeni traffickers, had been taken to the city’s prison.<\/p>\n
{{WAR ZONE}}<\/p>\n
More than 30 wounded were reported to have been taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
The rebel-controlled Saba agency accused the Saudi-led coalition battling the insurgents of attacking the refugees from the air but did not provide further details.<\/p>\n
Major General Ahmed Assiri, spokesman for the coalition, dismissed the accusation and told AFP that the force had not been involved in fighting in Hodeida.<\/p>\n
“There has been no firing by the coalition in this zone,” he said.<\/p>\n
The coalition has been backing pro-government forces waging an offensive from the south to retake Yemen’s Red Sea coast from Huthi rebel forces.<\/p>\n
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said 140 passengers were believed to have been aboard the vessel.<\/p>\n
{{CIVILIANS BEAR THE BRUNT}}<\/p>\n
The attack drew condemnation from UN agencies and the International Committee for the Red Cross, with the ICRC also demanding an immediate investigation.<\/p>\n
Despite a war that has cost more than 7,000 lives since March 2015 and brought the country to the brink of famine, Yemen continues to attract people fleeing the horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
The UNHCR says that Yemen is hosting more than 255,000 Somali refugees.<\/p>\n
Several refugee camps in southern Yemen host Somali refugees, although not in the Hodeida area.<\/p>\n
The UNHCR said that as conditions worsen in Yemen, refugees are starting to use areas further to the north as a transit route.<\/p>\n
It called on all sides in Yemen’s war to protect civilians.<\/p>\n
“UNHCR is appalled by this tragic incident, the latest in which civilians continue to disproportionately bear the brunt of conflict in Yemen,” it said.<\/p>\n
{{GRUESOME}}<\/p>\n
The ICRC’s Eric Christopher Wyss, quoting survivors at the scene, said many people on the boat “were refugees from Somalia or Yemen, fleeing the conflict”.<\/p>\n
“It was a gruesome and heartbreaking scene. I saw many men, women and children either killed or horribly wounded,” he said.<\/p>\n
The IOM said it believed the boat had been headed for Sudan.<\/p>\n
“We strongly condemn this attack and deplore such a tragic loss of life,” the ICRC’s director of operations, Dominik Stillhart, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“These people were themselves fleeing conflict, in search of safety and a better life. We call on the warring parties to conduct an immediate investigation into what happened.”<\/p>\n
The coast south of Hodeida has seen violent clashes over the past 24 hours, leaving 32 dead including 10 civilians, according to military and medical officials.<\/p>\n
The fighting killed 14 rebels and eight soldiers supporting the UN-backed government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, military sources said.<\/p>\n
{{SAUDI-LED COALITION}}<\/p>\n
That came as pro-Hadi forces sought to advance northwards from the port town of Mokha in an offensive to retake Yemen’s western coast from Huthi rebel forces.<\/p>\n
Saudi-led coalition aircraft had taken part in the assault, the same sources said.<\/p>\n
Seven fishermen were also killed off Hodeida by gunfire from an unidentified source, while a further seven were killed in a car near Mokha, hospital workers said.<\/p>\n
The UN’s humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien has called Yemen “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world”, with two-thirds of the population in need of aid.<\/p>\n
On Friday, a rebel missile attack killed at least 26 members of the pro-government forces in a camp east of the capital Sanaa, officials at a hospital in Marib town said.<\/p>\n
Source:AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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