Saudi-led airstrikes kill 8 civilians in Yemen market

SANAA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- At least eight civilians were killed when the Saudi-led coalition struck a popular market in Yemen's city of Saada on Thursday, witnesses and a local official said.

The victims were three shoppers and a family of five including a couple and their three adult daughters. The airstrikes happened at the Jayash fruits market at downtown in the afternoon.

Several sellers and shoppers were wounded in the airstrikes and were taken to a nearby hospital, said the witnesses and the official.

Several shops and cars were also damaged in the attacks, they said.

Saada is the main stronghold of dominant Shiite Houthi movement, which seized control over the country's north area, including the capital Sanaa, in late 2014, and forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile.

The attack was the latest in a series of airstrikes conducted by the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition air force since the start of the war in Yemen three years ago.

Last week, the coalition airstrikes targeted a pickup truck laden with wood in Nihm district northeast of Sanaa, killing two men and injured three women, according to the officials.

On March 8, the coalition airstrikes hit a farm and a popular market in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, killing eight civilians, according to the local officials and residents.

The coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to roll back the Iranian-allied Shiite Houthi rebels and to support the internationally-recognized President Hadi.

The war has killed over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, displaced 3 million others and triggered the one of the worst humanitarian crises worldwide. Enditem