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Yemen’s Houthi rebels say a US airstrike has killed 68 people in a prison holding African detainees. The US military had no immediate comment.
The alleged strike in Yemen’s Saada governorate, a stronghold for the Houthis, is the latest incident in the country’s decade-long war in which people from Ethiopia and other countries who have risked crossing Yemen for a chance to work in neighbouring Saudi Arabia have died.
It is also likely to renew questions from activists about the US campaign, known as “Operation Rough Rider”, which has been targeting the rebels as the Trump administration negotiates with their main benefactor, Iran, over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
The US military’s Central Command, in a statement early on Monday before news of the alleged strike broke, sought to defend its policy of offering no specific details of operations. The airstrikes have caused controversy in the US over the defence secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to post sensitive details about the attacks.
“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations,” Central Command said. “We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do.”
It did not immediately respond to questions from the Associated Press about the alleged strike in Saada.
Graphic footage aired by the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel showed what appeared to be dead bodies and others wounded at the site. The Houthi-run interior ministry said 115 migrants had been detained at the site.
Al-Masirah later said at least 68 people had been killed. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the death toll. The rebels’ civil defence organisation separately said 47 others had been wounded in the attack.
Footage from the site analysed by AP suggested some kind of explosion took place, with the prison’s cement walls seemingly peppered by debris fragments and the nature of the wounds suffered.
A woman’s voice can be heard repeating the start of a prayer in Arabic: “In the name of God.” An occasional gunshot rang out as medics sought to help those wounded.
Ethiopians and people from other African countries have for years landed in Yemen, braving the wartorn country to try to reach Saudi Arabia for work. The Houthi rebels allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling people over the border.
Ethiopians have found themselves detained, abused and even killed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen during the war. A letter to the kingdom from the UN in October 2022 said its investigators had “received concerning allegations of cross-border artillery shelling and small arms fire allegedly by Saudi security forces, causing the deaths of up to 430 and injuring 650 migrants”.
Saudi Arabia has denied the claim.
Monday’s alleged strike recalled a similar strike by a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis in 2022 on the same compound, which caused a collapse, killing 66 detainees and wounding 113 others, a United Nations report later said. The Houthis shot dead 16 detainees who fled after the strike and wounded another 50, the UN said. The Saudi-led coalition sought to justify the strike by saying the Houthis built and launched drones there, but the UN said it was known to be a detention facility.
“The coalition should have avoided any attack on that facility,” the UN report added.
That 2022 attack was one of the deadliest single attacks in the years-long war between the coalition and the Houthi rebels and came after the Houthis struck inside the UAE twice with missiles and drones, killing three in a strike near Abu Dhabi’s international airport.
Meanwhile, US airstrikes overnight targeting Yemen’s capital killed at least eight people, the Houthis said. The American military acknowledged carrying out more than 800 individual strikes in its month-long campaign.
The overnight statement from Central Command also said Operation Rough Rider had “killed hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders”, including those associated with its missile and drone programme. It did not identify any of those officials.
The US is targeting the Houthis because of the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and on Israel. The Houthis are also the last militant group in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” that is capable of regularly attacking Israel.
