Wedding-turned-funeral: Yemen's Houthis kill mother of bride shopping for wedding dress

A soon-to-be bride shopping for a wedding dress with her mother and brother was attacked by Houthi gunmen, local reports confirmed on Thursday.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab Staff

07 June, 2020

The family were travelling by bus when the attack happened [Twitter]

A mother, her soon-to-be-bride daughter and her young son were attacked by Houthi gunmen on Thursday while travelling on a bus to shop for a wedding dress, local reports confirmed.

The mother and her young son, identified as Bashir Taha Al-Jaafari, were both killed in the attack, which saw gunmen open fire on a bus near the Al-Ma'ain area in western Ibb, witnesses said, according to Almasdar Online.

Al-Jaafari's sister was unharmed in the attack, sources said.

It is unclear whether the mother and son were the intended targets of the attack, though the rebel group has been accused of war crimes, some of which include unexplained assault on women in the country.

In April, at least five women and a child were killed after Houthi rebels launched an attack on a prison in Yemen's third largest Taiz city.

The child was reportedly visiting the prison at the time of the attack.

Graphic images that surfaced online showed the dead bodies sprawled across the floor at the facility.

Yemen's devastating five-year war has introduced air strikes, death and poverty to a nation that was already listed as one of the most impoverished in the world.

Read also: Saudi Arabia intensifies bombardment ahead as it prepares to co-host Yemen aid conference

More than 100,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition intervened to back the government in March 2015, prompting the UN to label the situation in the country as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemen is currently facing a catastrophic outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which has particularly hit the southern coastal city of Aden as well as the Houthi-run capital Sanaa.

The United Nations warned Wednesday that its programs to fight the coronavirus in war-torn Yemen might have to stop by the end the month unless they get an immediate injection of cash.

The warning comes a day after a UN appeal for countries to fund emergency aid in the Arab world's poorest nation fell a billion dollars short of what aid agencies needed - $2.41 billion - to cover essential activities from June to December.

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