At least 85 people were killed and more than 322 injured on Wednesday in Yemen in a stampede during a solidarity action in Sana’a, security and medical sources said Thursday.
“Eighty-four people died and more than 322 were injured” in a night stampede, in a solidarity action, at a school in the Bab el-Yemen neighborhood, said a security official in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital at the hands of the rebels. houthis
These numbers were confirmed by a person in charge of the local medical authorities, according to the news agency France-Presse (AFP).
The previous balance counted 79 dead and more than 100 wounded.
“There are children among the dead” and 50 of the injured are in serious condition, said the same official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The incident took place in downtown Sana’a when hundreds of poor people gathered at an event organized by merchants, the Huthi Interior Ministry said, blaming the event organizers for “random distribution” of funds without coordination with the local authorities.
The tragedy occurred before the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks, later this week, the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting and prayer in the Muslim tradition, followed by almost two billion people.
The rebels quickly sealed off the site, preventing people, including journalists, from approaching it, AFP said.
In a video broadcast by the rebel television channel Al Masirah, bodies can be seen trapped and piled up and people climbing over each other to try to escape.
A Houthi official blamed the disaster on “too many people” in the narrow street leading to the school. When the doors opened, the crowd ran up the stairs, which lead to the schoolyard, where the money distribution was scheduled to be distributed, said Mohammed Ali al-Huthi, a member of the rebels’ Supreme Political Council.
But some witnesses claimed that the shots fired into the air by the military caused the crowd to panic.
The victims were taken to neighboring hospitals and the organizers of the event were detained, the Interior Ministry announced in a statement carried by the rebel-run Saba news agency.
The president of the rebels’ Supreme Political Council, Mehdi al Mashat, announced the “creation of a commission of inquiry into the causes of the accident,” Saba said.
“Three merchants were arrested,” a Houthi official said.
Yemen’s capital has been in the hands of Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since 2014, when they overthrew the internationally recognized government, leading to the intervention, in 2015, of a Saudi-led coalition to try to restore the government.
In recent years, the conflict has escalated into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. More than 150,000 people died, between combatants and civilians, in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.
More than 21 million people in Yemen, or two-thirds of the country’s population, are in need of aid and protection, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Among those in need, more than 17 million are considered particularly vulnerable.
In February, the United Nations claimed to have raised 1.2 billion dollars (close to one million euros) out of a goal of 4.3 billion dollars (3.9 billion euros), at a conference aimed at generating funds to alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
Source: TSF
