Arab coalition warplanes killed 27 civilians in Sanaa: NGO

SANAA

Twenty-seven civilians were killed, including 15 children, and over ten others were injured from airstrikes carried out Thursday by a Saudi-led military coalition on a northern residential district in Sanaa, a Yemeni NGO has said.

"At least 27 civilians – including 15 children – were killed and over ten others were injured in an aerial raid by the Saudi-led military coalition that hit a residential complex housing eight families in northern Sanaa," Mwatana Organization for Human Rights (MOHR) said in a statement.

"The assault conducted by the coalition forces in the early hours of Thursday targeted a residential complex located at least 2.5km from the nearest military site," MOHR claimed.

In the statement, MOHR head Radhiyyah al-Mutawakkil stressed the need to investigate the circumstances of what she described as "a horrible massacre" in al-Nour neighborhood.

al-Mutawakkil also called for not targeting civilians and urged taking necessary measures to minimize any damage that might befall Yemeni citizens.

Claims by the MOHR could not be independently verified, but the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition has reiterated on several occasions that its warplanes are only targeting military sites and avoiding any area that might contain civilians.

Several Arab states have joined the Saudi-led offensive which kicked off late Wednesday with a string of airstrikes against the positions of the Houthi group in Yemen, including some in capital Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia said the strikes were in response to calls by Hadi for military intervention to "save the people from the Houthi militias."

The Gulf countries accuse Shiite Iran of supporting the Houthi insurgency.