The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday said hospitals in Yemen have been repeatedly and "deliberately" attacked, and urged warring factions to respect the sanctity of health facilities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross on Monday said hospitals in Yemen have been repeatedly and "deliberately" attacked, and urged warring factions to respect the sanctity of health facilities.
ICRC's statement follows 8 months of barbaric Saudi aggressions against the Yemeni people, killing the civilians and destroying the infrastructure across the poorest country in the Arab World.
It said in the statement that Al-Thawra hospital in third city Taiz was shelled on Sunday, weeks after a hospital run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres was hit in the north.
"Al-Thawra hospital, one of the main health care facilities in Taiz which is providing treatment for about 50 injured people every day, was reportedly shelled several times on Sunday," it said.
"The shelling endangered the lives of patients and staff on site," said the ICRC deputy head in Yemen, Kedir Awol Omar.
The Red Cross said there have been "close to a hundred similar" accidents reported since March, when a Saudi-led coalition launched an air war on the Yemeni people.
"Health facilities are deliberately attacked and surgical and medical supplies are also being blocked from reaching hospitals in areas under siege," said Omar.
In October, air strikes hit the Hayadeen hospital run near the city of Saada in northern Yemen, with MSF posting pictures on its Twitter account showing a collapsed roof and rubble.
MSF said there were no deaths, but rights group Amnesty International reported at the time that seven staff members were wounded.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon later denounced the air strikes which were carried out by warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition.
The ICRC said attacks on health facilities are "a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law", and deplored the health situation in Taiz.
The ICRC said it was been trying to deliver medical supplies to Taiz for nearly two months, "but to no avail".
The Saudi warplanes have several times prevented many aid planes from providing the Yemenis with their basic needs, including medical supplies and food stuffs.
Yemen has been since March 26 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition. Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.
However, Yemeni army, backed by the committees has been responding to the aggression by targeting several Saudi border military posts and cleansing several areas across the country, especially the country’s south, from Hadi and al-Qaeda-linked militias.
