UNSC calls for ‘transparent’ inquiry into Saudi-led strike in Yemen’s Saada

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has called for launching a “credible and transparent” investigation into a recent airstrike by the Saudi-led military coalition that killed dozens of schoolchildren in northern Yemen

The call was made during a closed-door Security Council meeting on Friday, a day after Saudi-led warplanes attacked a school bus in a market, killing at least 50 civilians, mainly schoolchildren, and wounding 77 others in Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada

The bus targeted by the coalition forces was carrying a group of young schoolchildren attending summer classes of the Holy Qur’an, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported

The Saudi-led coalition, in a defiant statement, has described the massacre as a “legitimate action” to target missile launchers used by Houthi Ansarullah fighters to target the southern Saudi city of Jizan

Saudi Arabia and some of its allies launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Yemen’s former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which is a significant aid to the Yemeni army in defending the country against the invading forces. The movement has also been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration during the past three years