Yemen: Houthi Missile Strike On Religious School Kills Children, Women

Two ballistic missiles fired by the Iran-backed Houthis struck a religious school and a mosque, killing and wounding 29 people, including women and children, in Yemen’s central province of Marib, Yemen’s Information Minister, Muammar Al-Eryani said.

The missiles exploded inside Dar Al-Hadith School, which includes a mosque and an adjoining accommodation for students, on Sunday night in Al-Amud in Juba district, south of Marib. Residents said that the casualties included children and women and the missiles also destroyed some houses in the same area.

The school is managed by Yahiya Al- Hagouri, a Salafi leader, and is attended by hundreds of students.

The Salafis decamped to Juba in 2014 after the Houthis stormed their schools in Dammaj, in Saada governate, and ordered them to leave the province.

Sunday’s attack on Al-Amud brings the total number of civilians killed in Houthi missile attacks in Juba to nearly three dozen in less than a week.

Last week, a ballistic missile hit the house of Abdul Latif Al-Qibli Namran, a tribal leader who had incited his tribe to fight off the Houthi attacks on Marib. The attack killed 13 civilians, including two of Namran’s children, and wounded many more.

Al-Eryani accused the Houthis of deliberately targeting densely populated neighborhoods and religious sites, calling upon the world to shame and name the Houthis for their crimes.

On Sunday, Al-Masdar Online, a Yemeni news site, reported that a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis from a rural area in Sanaa province failed to reach its target in Marib province and came down on a village in Khawlan district.

Residents said that the large explosion that caused panic in the village, but there was no information about human casualties.

On Oct. 23, dozens of civilians were reportedly killed or wounded in the northern province of Dhamar when a Houthi ballistic missile failed to reach its target and ripped through a residential area.

Also in Marib, fighting between government troops and the Houthis intensified on Monday and Sunday as the militia pressed for new gains in the province.

The fighting raged in Juba district as government forces repelled several Houthi attacks and killed and wounded dozens of rebel fighters, Yemen’s Defense Ministry said.

The intensive fighting in Juba has forced hundreds of families to flee toward the city of Marib.

The government’s Executive Unit for IDP Camps, said that 54,502 people have been displaced from homes in Juba, Rahabah and Hareb, Jabal Murad, Serwah and Al-Abedia since earlier last month when the Houthis escalated their ground attacks and missile and drone strikes on government-controlled areas south of Marib.

The unit said that thousands of families are trapped in areas near the battlefields as the Houthis blocked roads and barred people from leaving homes.

Last month, the Houthis laid a siege on thousands of people in Abedia, barring more than 35,000 residents from leaving or entering homes and blocking the distribution of humanitarian deliveries to them to force government troops to surrender.

In the southern city of Taiz, at least 13 Houthis were killed and 25 more wounded in heavy fighting with government troops during the past 24 hours, residents and local officials said.

Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a Yemen army officer in Taiz, told Arab News by telephone that government troops attacked Houthis in the western side of Taiz and seized a number of locations.

On Saturday, four children were killed and two more wounded when a mortar shell fired by Houthis struck a residential area in Taiz’s Camp area.