An airstrike on a mosque and religious school in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, on Friday killed at least 29 civilians and injured 47 others, a Yemeni foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement.
The United Arab Emirates said it carried out the airstrike on a mosque used as a training camp by the Iran-allied Houthi rebels to infiltrate Saudi Arabia’s forces in a coordinated attack last week.
“The Hajjah ground forces have confirmed that there is no Houthi training camp in Hajjah governorate after carrying out the operation,” the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to Reuters.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his condolences over the attack.
“We condemn the attack on the civilian Ahmadi family and condemn all attacks on civilians, including attacks launched by armed opposition groups,” UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
The US State Department on Thursday said the Trump administration remains committed to ending the conflict in Yemen.
“U.S. counterterrorism capabilities are critical to interdicting the flow of arms and money that finance extremist groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” the State Department said in a statement.
The Saudi-led coalition fired a missile on an SAUDI airbase on the outskirts of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in January, after a spate of anti-Saudi Houthi missile attacks on Riyadh, which the group claimed were foiled.
The Saudi-led coalition launched a cruise missile strike on the same SAUDI airbase in May, after a volley of Houthi ballistic missiles towards the kingdom.
The United Nations said the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country, which has been in a state of civil war since 2015.
More than half the country’s 28 million people are in need of assistance and at least 2,000 children are believed to have died from starvation and disease since the coalition campaign began.
The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people, including at least 2,200 civilians, according to the United Nations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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