Roundup: Yemen's Houthis claim Saudi-led airstrike targeting blood bank

SANAA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebel group claimed that a Saudi-led coalition air strike on Saturday hit the national blood bank in the capital Sanaa, said a statement carried by Houthi-controlled Saba news agency.

Houthis said the air strike left heavy damage in the blood transfusion bank, but gave no further details. However, there were no comments by the Saudi-led coalition on the Houthi claim.

Also, the Houthis reported that other coalition air strikes on Sanaa killed a mourner and injured two others on Saturday morning during a funeral ceremony attended by thousands of supporters of the Houthi group to mourn the the death of the group's second-in-command Saleh al-Sammad killed last week in a coalition air strike.

Meanwhile, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite TV channel reported that the coalition air strikes on the rebel-controlled Interior Ministry in Sanaa late on Friday killed at least 35 rebels, including senior commanders.

Residents of Sanaa said about seven air strikes targeted the capital overnight, hours ahead of the funeral ceremony. The Houthis said via Saba that the air raids targeted the interior ministry building, north of Sanaa, and Sabeen square where the mourners were gathering in south of Sanaa.

The Houthis later said they fired eight ballistic missiles toward military and vital facilities in Saudi border city Jizan in retaliation for the air strikes that targeted the funeral ceremony and the interior ministry in Sanaa.

Though, Saudi state media reported that the Saudi air defence forces had intercepted four missiles over Jizan, and said a Saudi citizen was killed from debris fallen from the missiles.

The coalition considered al-Sammad as the No. 2 leader after the group chief Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. It killed al-Sammad on April 19 in the rebel-held Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

The killing of al-Sammad was considered the most powerful blow so far on the Iranian-backed Houthi movement.

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

The rebels have seized control over much of the country's north since September 2014, including the capital Sanaa, and forced President Hadi and his government into exile in Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia.

The war has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, and displaced 3 million others, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Enditem