‘Where are my brothers?’ pleads Yemen school bus attack survivor

Al Jazeera: Grief and anger has gripped Yemen’s war-ravaged province of Saada a day after the Saudi-UAE military alliance, backed by the US, bombed a school bus carrying children heading to a Quran class.
Al Masirah, a pro-Houthi TV network, said at least 50 people, including dozens of children, were killed in the attack which struck the bus as it was approaching a crowded market in Dahyan city. Johannes Bruwer, the head of a delegation for the International Committee of the Red Crescent (ICRC) in Yemen, said in a Twitter post that according to local officials, 77 were also injured.
“Of these, the ICRC hospital in Al Talh received 30 dead and 48 injured, of which the vast majority were children.” Mohammed Jabber Awad, the governor of Saada, told local media that the bus was carrying 30 students, but as many as 60 people may have been killed in the raid.
Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi activist, told Al Jazeera that the death toll was expected to rise in the coming days.
“Most of the hospitals and clinics in Saada have either been completely destroyed or are badly damaged, and most lack basic medicines. So how will they treat the wounded?” he said.
According to the ICRC, one of the few humanitarian institutions helping civilians in the country, all of the children who were admitted to its hospital were under the age of 15.
The Saudi-UAE alliance later issued a statement to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network confirmed it launched attacks on Saada, and accused Houthi fighters of using the children as human shields.
“[The air strikes] conformed to international and humanitarian laws,” a statement quoting coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said.
In unverified videos uploaded to social media, bereaved parents could be seen pleading with hospital staff for updates, as dead bodies literally began piling up, on top of each other.
In one video, a father could be seen struggling to contain his grief after he found his dead son under a heap of corpses in the boot of a Nissan pick-up truck.
In a second video, one of the children who survived the attack refused to receive medical attention until doctors updated him on the fate of his two younger brothers.
“I have two brothers, Hassan and Yehia, who are smaller than me,” the boy said. “Where are my brothers? … I don’t want help until I see my brothers.”
It was not clear if the boy’s brothers had survived.
Pictures from the scene of the attack showed homes and businesses destroyed, with trails of blood on the roads and UNICEF rucksacks splattered with blood.
“I am watching with horror the images and videos coming from Saada in #Yemen and I have no words. How was this a military target? Why are children being killed?” tweeted Meritxell Relano, UNICEF’s resident representative in Yemen.
Yemen’s rebel-run Ministry of Defense issued a statement early on Friday, saying: “The silence of the international community legitimised [the Saudi-UAE alliance’s] continuing aggression and brutality.
“By staying silent about these crimes, they are accomplices in the deaths of women and children.”
The ministry’s comments came shortly after the US State Department called on the Saudis “to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident”.
Previous investigations by the Saudi-UAE alliance have seen them absolve themselves of any real responsibility, and instead pin blame on the Houthis.
Meanwhile, the UN, which has repeatedly criticised the alliance’s bombing campaign and last year placed it on a blacklist of child rights violators, called for an independent investigation.
Houthi leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said on Twitter that the rebels would “cooperate” if needed.
Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s country director for Yemen, called on UN Security Council members to exert more pressure on the Saudi-UAE alliance, and “demand an immediate ceasefire” and the “resumption of peace talks.”
“Hitting a bus carrying school children near a crowded market is simply unacceptable,” Siddiquey told Al Jazeera.