Yemen’s Houthi rebels said a US airstrike on a prison holding African migrants killed 60 people on Monday in what could be one of the deadliest attacks in a six-week aerial campaign.
Houthi-controlled television showed graphic footage of bodies trapped under rubble and rescuers looking for survivors in Saada, a Houthi bastion in northwestern Yemen.
The same building had been struck by a Saudi-led coalition that was fighting the Houthis in 2022,
killing 66 people, according to the UN at the time.
The US did not immediately comment on the Houthi claim, but on Sunday it said that it had conducted more than 800 strikes since March 15, when it began a second phase of its operation to deter the Houthis from
attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
This followed another bombing campaign, which involved Britain’s Royal Air Force and other allies, last year.
The US has divulged little information on the airstrikes but says it has killed Houthi commanders and severely damaged their military infrastructure. The Houthis have continued to claim attacks on US navy ships and missile attacks on Israel, saying they will stop only when the war ends in Gaza, where Israel is battling the Houthi ally Hamas.
The Iranian-backed rebels have rebuffed US offers to end the airstrikes in return for an end to the attacks on shipping that have paralysed commercial traffic in the Red Sea.
The Houthis’ actions in support of Hamas have increased their popularity in a region that is overwhelmingly hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza, and diplomats and analysts say they see no reason to end their attacks now.
Yemeni factions opposed to the Houthis are now lobbying to launch a ground operation they argue could beat them back to their north Yemen stronghold, from where they had swept through swathes of the country before seizing the capital Sanaa in 2014.
The US has not publicly backed the plan, or offered a strategy to defeat the Houthis, Yemeni officials say. The campaign, which has already cost the US almost $1 billion, has stirred controversy after Pete Hegseth, the defence minister, sent battle plans to a chat group of American officials that had
mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic magazine.