Riyadh announced an easing of its 18-month air blockade of neighboring Yemen on Wednesday to allow the evacuation of hundreds of wounded from a deadly Saudi air strike that killed and injured nearly 700 people in the weekend.
More than 140 people were killed in Saturday’s raid the Yemeni capital Sanaa that drew worldwide condemnation.
At least 525 more were wounded, according to the United Nations, making it one of the bloodiest attacks since a Saudi-led coalition launched a bombing campaign against Yemen in March 2015.
More than 300 are in critical condition and need medical treatment abroad, the spokesman for the health authority in Sanaa, Tamim al-Shami said on Sunday.
The official Saudi Press Agency reported that King Salman instructed aid officials to coordinate with the coalition and the Saudi-backed Yemeni exiled government “to facilitate the evacuation of those wounded… and needing treatment abroad.”
The coalition has enforced an air and sea blockade on Yemen since the start of its bombing campaign, with exceptions made only for UN flights and UN-supervised aid deliveries, most of them through the Red Sea port of Hodeida.
The civil aviation authority in the Yemeni capital had called on the United Nations on Tuesday to “act quickly and seriously to end the air blockade imposed on Sanaa airport in order to save the lives of hundreds wounded.”
Source: AFP
