Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen rebel-run prison kill over 100
Sanaa: Yemeni medics said on Monday they pulled dozens of bodies from the rubble of a Houthi rebel-run detention center that was hit a day earlier by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, killing over 100 people and wounding dozens.
It was the deadliest such attack so far this year in a stalemated four-year war that's claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The Saudi-led coalition, which has fought the Iran-backed Houthis since 2015, has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of civilians.
By the early afternoon, 86 bodies had been pulled from the ruins of a building complex in southwestern Dhamar province, originally a college but converted by the Houthi rebels to a detention center, Yemen's Red Crescent said.
There were around 170 detainees at the facility when the airstrikes hit on Sunday.
The International Committee for the Red Cross said 40 wounded were being treated for injuries while the rest were presumed dead, and that it would likely take days to recover all the bodies.
The facility was part of the local community college before the Houthis turned it into a detention center, one of dozens in areas under their control.
The Houthis said the detainees were captured forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognized government, and that both the Red Cross and the coalition knew detainees were being held there.
The Red Cross, which inspects detention centers as part of its global mission, said Sunday it had previously visited detainees at the site.
Col Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said in a televised press conference Monday it had bombed a "legitimate military target," and blamed the Houthis for using the former college as a detention center for Yemenis who were forcibly disappeared.
He said the Red Cross never told the coalition that there were detainees at the site, which he said was not on a UN-coordinated no-strike list. The UN provides the coalition with coordinates for locations such as hospitals, schools and official prisons to ensure they are not hit by airstrikes.
"The only known prion (in the area) is located 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the targeted site," he said.
Former detainee Mansour al-Zelai told The Associated Press that the Houthis were repairing weapons in and close to the detention center. Several other detainees said the same via posts to social media, and said the center had come under a series of airstrikes before.
Rights groups have also previously documented that the Houthis use civilian detainees as human shields by placing them in detention centers next to army barracks, under constant threat of airstrikes.
Local residents said the center also held their imprisoned family members, arrested for being critical of the Houthis.
The Abductees' Mothers Union, an association of female relatives of detainees jailed by the Houthis, said "dozens of abductees and people who were disappeared by force" elsewhere in Yemen had been brought to the center from other areas under rebel control.
The mothers' group said some detainees had died from torture in the center and called for an international investigation into Sunday's airstrikes and abuses against the detainees.
The Yemen UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed Sunday that 52 detainees were among the dead.
Bashir al-Dawrani, a spokesman for Yemen's Red Crescent in Dhamar, said the wounded had been taken to various hospitals in Dhamar and the capital, Sanaa. Dhamar is located around 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Sanaa.
Elsewhere in Yemen, security officials said clashes flared up in the oil-rich province of Shabwa between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and southern separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates.
The fighting between the two sides a subplot within a broader narrative in which they are ostensibly allies in the Saudi-led coalition has added another layer to the complex civil war in the Arab world's most impoverished country.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said government forces had blocked the southern separatists from taking control of the town of Azzan, a former stronghold for al-Qaida's Yemeni branch.
However, Hani Bin Braik, the deputy head of the secessionist leadership council, said its forces had captured the town. The differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.
The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen's south between Saudi-backed and Emirati-backed forces.
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Stop atrocities on Hindus immediately, release ISKCON monk from jail: RSS to Bangladesh interim govt
New Delhi (PTI): The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Saturday appealed to the Bangladesh interim government to ensure the atrocities on the Hindus are stopped and ISKCON monk Chinmoy Krishna Das is released from jail immediately.
RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale in a statement also appealed to the Indian government to continue its efforts to stop the atrocities on the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh and take necessary steps to build global opinion in its support "as soon as possible".
"The attacks, murders, looting, arson as well as inhuman atrocities by Islamic fundamentalists on Hindus, women and all other minorities in Bangladesh are extremely worrying and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh condemns this," he said.
Instead of stopping this, the present Bangladesh government and other agencies are only silent spectators, Hosabale said.
"Out of helplessness, a new phase of injustice and atrocities seems to be emerging against the Hindus of Bangladesh to suppress the voice raised by them in a democratic way for self-defense," the RSS general secretary said.
"It is unjust for the Bangladesh government to send ISKCON monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, who is leading the Hindus in such peaceful demonstrations, to jail," he added
Bangladesh Police earlier on Monday arrested International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) monk Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport area in Dhaka while he was travelling to Chittagong.
"The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh appeals to the Bangladesh government to ensure that the atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh stop immediately and release Shri Chinmoy Krishna Das from imprisonment," Hosabale said.
"The RSS also appeals to the Indian government to continue its efforts to stop the atrocities on Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh and take necessary steps as soon as possible to build global opinion in its support," he added.
At this crucial time, the RSS general secretary said, India and the global community and institutions should stand with the victims of Bangladesh and express their support, and demand that their respective governments make every possible effort to ensure that atrocities on the Hindus and other minorities are stopped in Bangladesh immediately.
This is necessary for world peace and brotherhood, he added.
