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1st LD: Coalition airstrike kills 26 at Yemen wedding

Xinhua, October 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding celebration in Yemen's southwestern province of Dhamar Wednesday night, killing 26 civilians and wounding dozens, medical sources told Xinhua.

The airstrike hit the house of a tribal leader who allegedly supports the Shiite Houthi group in Sanaban village in Dhamar province, about 100 km southeast of the capital Sanaa.

Medics and rescuers said 26 people at the wedding ceremony were killed, including seven children, while more than 40 others were wounded, including 15 children and 17 women.

It was the second airstrike on a wedding party in Yemen in over a week. On Sept. 28, coalition warplanes bombed two wedding tents in the southern province of Taiz, killing at least 131 people, which is the deadliest attack on civilians in the six-month civil war.

The United Nations has called for peace talks to end the war, saying "there is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen," as more than 4,900 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes, half of them civilians.

The coalition has been air striking the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi group across Yemen on a daily basis since March 26, when Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled to the Saudi capital of Riyadh to take refuge.

The coalition said its intervention aims to restore Hadi's authority in the country.

The Shiite Houthi group seized half of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, and ousted Hadi and his government. Enditem