More than 100 people are believed to have been killed when the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels launched an air strike on a detention centre in Yemen.
Yemeni Red Crescent workers placed corpses in white bags while bulldozers and other heavy equipment moved through the rubble to try to retrieve bodies before decay set in at the site in Dhamar in southwest Yemen. "Anger and sadness were natural reactions", Franz Rauchenstein, its head of delegation for Yemen, said in a statement.
Over the last four years, the Saudi-led coalition has come under heavy criticism from worldwide rights groups following air strikes that have killed scores of civilians in residential areas, and at markets, funerals and weddings. The UN provides the coalition with co-ordinates for locations such as hospitals, schools and official prisons to ensure they are not hit by airstrikes.
Local residents said the centre also held their imprisoned family members, arrested for being critical of the Houthis.
The Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to support the government after the Iran-linked Huthis swept out of their northern stronghold to seize Sanaa and much of Yemen - the Arab world's poorest nation.
Following the strikes by Saudi-led jets, the ICRC rushed to the scene in the city of Dhamar with medical teams and hundreds of body bags.
The UAE-Saudi led coalition confirmed airstrikes on Dhamar but stated it had only targeted a Houthi camp storing missiles and drones.
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In this photo provided by WHNT-TV News, authorities block access to a street, in Elkmont, Ala ., Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019. A police officer then confirmed to CNN that the two members in critical condition had since died.
Straziuso said the ICRC had "a forensics professional on-site who will be helping this week with dead body management". The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV channel reportedly informed the health spokesperson that 50 people were also wounded.
The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of starvation and spawned the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the raging conflict since 2016, according to United Nations estimates.
"Bellingcat's open-source investigations highlight a destructive pattern of attacks on densely populated markets, prisons, weddings and funerals in Yemen, leaving little to no accountability or acknowledgement in their wake", it said.
The mothers' group said some detainees had died from torture in the centre and called for an global investigation into Sunday's airstrikes and abuses against the detainees.
"Yemen has been at the center of my attention", she said in a statement.
The Saudi-led coalition's latest air raid comes months after President Donald Trump vetoed a War Powers resolution that would have ended USA military cooperation with Saudi Arabia's years-long assault on Yemen, which has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
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