Saudi Coalition Admits Mistake in Airstrike on Sanaa

One day after a deadly attack on a neighborhood in Yemen's capital, the Saudi-led coalition took responsibility for its "mistake" and expressed regret over the incident. In an official statement, coalition forces described the incident, which claimed the lives of several children, as a "technical error." On Friday, September 3, media reported another attack on Yemen's capital that resulted in "12 deaths, including six children." Al Jazeera and the French news agency reported the death toll in this recent attack as 14. According to the French news agency, this recent attack occurred in a neighborhood in southern Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which has been under the control of the Shiite Houthi rebels since 2014. In its statement published on Saturday, September 4, by the Saudi news agency, the coalition expressed regret over the incident but simultaneously criticized the Houthi rebels. The coalition accused the Houthis of establishing a command center in a residential area "to use civilians as human shields." The death of 14 people, including "six" children, in this recent attack provoked a strong global reaction. The International Committee of the Red Cross reacted strongly to this attack on the same day, and Amnesty International issued a statement urging the United Nations to take action against Saudi Arabia for the civilian deaths in Yemen's airstrikes. Just hours before this deadly attack, the UN Human Rights Office had called for an "independent investigation" into the Saudi-led coalition's attack on a guesthouse building. Last Wednesday, Yemeni officials and eyewitnesses reported that at least 35 people had been killed due to airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition on a guesthouse near Sanaa, the capital of the country. The Saudi-led military coalition has been conducting extensive attacks against the Houthi rebels and their allies, loyal to the ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, since March 2015, which is two and a half years ago. The stated goal of this military campaign is to drive the Houthis out of large areas of Yemeni territory, including the city of Sanaa, and to restore power to Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the President of Yemen. However, coalition airstrikes have also targeted civilian centers such as schools, hospitals, and markets, resulting in thousands of deaths among ordinary people and civilians. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, since the beginning of the Arab coalition's attacks on Yemen, nearly 8,400 civilians have been killed and nearly 50,000 have been injured as a result of these attacks.