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| Arabia |
| Air raid kills 45 at Yemen displaced camp |
| 2015-03-31 |
| [Hurriyet Daily News] An air strike killed dozens of people at a camp for displaced people in northwest Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... on March 30, aid workers said, as Arab warplanes bombard rebels around the country. The International Organization for Migration said 45 internally displaced people had been killed and 65 maimed at the Al-Mazrak camp in Hajja province. IOM front man Joel Millman told AFP that the organization had 75 staff on hand assisting the victims. Earlier Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said 15 dead bodies and 30 maimed were taken to a hospital where it operates near the Al-Mazrak camp. "It was an air strike," said MSF's Middle East programme manager Pablo Marco. The Al-Mazrak camp has since 2009 been housing Yemenis displaced by the conflict between northern Houthis and the central government. Marco said 500 new families had arrived at the camp over the past two days. A Saudi-led Arab coalition has been pounding rebel positions in Yemen since early Thursday. It has vowed to keep up the raids until the Iran-backed rebels abandon their insurrection against President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh. Warplanes carried out a fifth night of air strikes around the capital Sanaa, an AFP correspondent reported. Positions held by the Houthis and soldiers of the renegade Republican Guard overlooking the presidential palace were believed to have been targeted. A Republican Guard camp in south Sanaa was also hit, witnesses said. In the area around Marib, 140 kilometres (90 miles) east of Sanaa, radar facilities and surface-to-air missile batteries were targeted, local officials said. The Huthis are backed as well by army units loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , who stepped down in 2012 after a year of bloody protests in the deeply tribal country, where Al-Qaeda is active. Officials said on Monday that the ex-strongman's son had been sacked as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the coalition. Ahmed Ali Saleh was relieved of his duties at the demand of the UAE, according to a Gulf diplomatic official who did not want to be named. A Hadi aide confirmed the president had dismissed Saleh, who was appointed to the post after his father's overthrow but is believed to have remained in Yemen. The Huthis and allied renegade military units have overrun much of Yemen and prompted Hadi to flee what had been his last remaining refuge in the main southern city Aden. Dozens of people have been killed in several days of festivities in Aden, and Hadi's aides have said he has no immediate plan to return there. A Chinese naval flotilla, which had been carrying out anti-piracy escort missions in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters, was sent to Yemen on Sunday to evacuate Chinese nationals, China's defence ministry said in a statement. More than 500 Chinese citizens have been evacuated over the past two days, Beijing said. |
| Posted by:Fred |