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FRANCE - YEMEN

Doctors Without Borders slams fourth hospital attack in Yemen

Paris-based medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has slammed the fourth air strike on one of its hospitals in Yemen, blaming the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which is fighting Houthi rebels. Eleven people were killed, including an MSF worker, and at least 19 injured, it said.

A woman holds her malnourished son next to their tent at a camp for internally displaced people near Sanaa, Yemen
A woman holds her malnourished son next to their tent at a camp for internally displaced people near Sanaa, Yemen ReutersKhaled Abdullah
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The Saudi-led coalition said Tuesday that it had launched an "independent investigation" into "reports of an air raid" on the hospital in Abs, in Hajja governorate north-west of the capital Sanaa, between the border with Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea. Doctors Without Borders operates in the hospital and they said one of their workers was among the dead.

"We've been in this hospital since the beginning of the war," Teresa Sancristoval, the head of MSF's emergency unit in Yemen, told RFI. "We've given its coordinates to all the actors several times. It's a hospital in the middle of a displaced persons' camp, with 25 pregnant women, who were waiting to give birth. There was everything. It was a fully functioning hospital."

This is the fourth time a hospital where MSF was operating has been hit in Yemen, while last year 42 people were killed when the US-led coalition bombed an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan.

"For us it's clear that they can't go on with this rhetoric of 'mistakes'," Sancristoval said. "We think it's important to realise that there is a principle of precaution, a principle of conduct in war that means one shouldn't make mistakes . Hospitals must be protected."

UN resolutions 'ignored'

UN resolutions calling for an end to attacks on medical installations and appeals for international law to be respected in the Yemeni conflict are being ignored, she added.

An attack on what MSF claims to be a school in neighbouring Saada governorate at the weekend killed 10 children.

The coalition claims that it targeted a Houthi training camp where child soldiers were being instructed.

The United States condemned the bombing of the hospital but held back from criticising the coalition itself.

Saudi Arabia is leading a group of Arab countries supporting President Abd-Rabbou Mansour Hadi against an alliance of the Houthis and supporters of former president Ali Abdallah Saleh.

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