At least 85 people died and more than 322 were injured in Yemen on Wednesday in a stampede during a solidarity rally in Sana’a, medical and security sources reported Thursday.
The stampede took place late Wednesday evening, as a solidarity action, at a school in the Bab el-Yemen district, a security official in Sana, the Yemeni capital held by Houthi rebels, said.
These figures were confirmed by a representative of the local medical authorities, according to the AFP.
The previous balance was 79 killed and more than 100 injured.
“There are children among the dead” and 50 of the injured are in serious condition, said the same official, who requested not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The incident took place in central Sana’a as hundreds of poor people gathered at an event organized by traders, the Huthi Ministry of the Interior said, accusing the organizers of the event of “arbitrary distribution” of funds without coordination with the local authorities.
The tragedy came before the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer in the Islamic tradition, followed by nearly two billion people at the end of this week.
The rebels quickly sealed off the site, preventing people, including journalists, from approaching. the AFP indicated.
A video broadcast by the rebel TV channel Al Masirah shows trapped and piled bodies and people climbing over each other to try to escape.
A Huthi official blames the disaster on “too many people” in the narrow street leading to the school. When the doors opened, the crowd ran up the stairs leading to the school courtyard, where the money distribution was planned, Mohammed Ali al Huthi, a member of the rebels’ Supreme Political Council, said.
But some witnesses claimed shots fired into the air by the military caused panic in the crowd.
The victims were transferred to neighboring hospitals and detained the organizers of the event, the Interior Ministry announced, in a statement from the rebel news agency Saba.
The chairman of the rebels’ Supreme Political Council, Mehdi al Mashat, announced the “establishment of a commission of inquiry into the causes of the accident,” Saba said.
“Three traders have been arrested,” said a Huthi official.
Yemen’s capital has been held by the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, since 2014, when they ousted the internationally recognized government, leading to the intervention in 2015 of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia to try to overthrow the government. to recover .
In recent years, the conflict has turned into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. More than 150,000 people, including combatants and civilians, lost their lives in one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
More than 21 million people in Yemen, or two-thirds of the country’s population, are in need of assistance and protection, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Of those in need, more than 17 million are considered particularly vulnerable.
In February, the United Nations claimed to have raised $1.2 billion (about a million euros) of a $4.3 billion (3.9 billion euros) goal at a conference designed to raise funds to tackle the humanitarian crisis. to light up.
Source: DN
