Yemen mourns 44 Houthis say Saudi strike killed

Large crowds gathered in Sanaa on Wednesday to mourn 44 people, including 21 children, whom the Houthis said were killed by a Saudi strike on al-Shariya village outside the Yemeni capital.

The Houthis said the Saturday strike injured 40 others. The group's Almasirah television reported another strike as emergency personnel headed to the site to dig out survivors. AFP could not verify the claim.

Mourners prayed at the Mosque of the People in Sanaa before a funeral procession took the bodies to al-Shariya for burial. An AFP photographer saw coffins draped in white cloth and bearing photographs and names of those killed. Residents in the village mourned friends and relatives.

Daifallah Sarhan, a farmer from the area, told AFP earlier this week that the victims were innocent and had been having a meal with their families and children when the strikes hit.

The deaths were among the latest casualties since fighting resumed over the summer. The UN says more than 1,600 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced in Yemen since then.

Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict a year later in support of the government. In July, a fragile 2022 truce fell apart after the Houthis allowed an Iranian plane to land in the capital in defiance of Saudi control over Yemeni airspace, setting off more attacks.

The Saudi-led coalition said Wednesday it had intercepted and destroyed three cruise missiles launched by the Houthis toward the Riyadh area. Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia have killed 26 people since hostilities resumed, and the group damaged a Saudi Aramco skyscraper in Riyadh's financial district on Sunday.