Many dead or missing after air strike destroys prison buildings in Yemen

SAADA • A "horrific" air strike on a Yemeni prison has left many dead or missing, aid workers have said after a night of deadly bombing that underlined a dramatic escalation in violence.

Gruesome scenes came to light in Saada, heartland of the Houthi rebel movement, as rescue workers pulled bodies from destroyed prison buildings and piled up mangled corpses, according to footage released by the insurgents.

Further south in Hodeida, video footage showed bodies in the rubble and dazed survivors after an air attack from the Saudi Arabia-led pro-government coalition took out a telecommunications hub.

Yemen suffered a nationwide Internet blackout, a Web monitor said.

Saada's hospital has received about 200 people wounded in the prison attack and "they are so overwhelmed that they cannot take any more patients", said Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF.

"There are many bodies still at the scene of the air strike, many missing people," Mr Ahmed Mahat, MSF head of mission in Yemen, said in a statement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross told Agence France-Presse yesterday that more than 100 people were killed or wounded in the prison attack, adding that the numbers were rising.

The strikes come five days after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed a drone-and-missile attack on the United Arab Emirates that killed three people and prompted warnings of reprisals.

The United Nations Security Council was due to meet yesterday in an emergency session on the Houthi attacks against the United Arab Emirates, at the request of the Gulf state, which has occupied one of the non-permanent seats on the council since Jan 1.

The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the rebels since 2015, in an intractable conflict that has displaced millions of Yemenis and left them on the brink of famine.

The coalition claimed the attack in Hodeida, a lifeline port for the shattered country, but did not say it had carried out any strikes on Saada.

Yemen's civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis descended from their base in Saada to overrun the capital Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks after the UAE-backed Giants Brigade drove the rebels out of Shabwa province, undermining their months-long campaign to take the key city of Marib farther north.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE