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At
least 40 children were killed in Thursday's raid which hit the
bus as it drove through a market of Dahyan, a town in Saada, the
armed Houthi group which controls the province said.
Cars bearing the logo of the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement
transported the bodies, wrapped in white shrouds, from the
hospital to a large square for prayers before heading to the
graveyard, where rows of graves were dug on Friday.
People carried pictures of those killed as armed Houthi fighters
managed the crowd attending the funeral.
"My son went to the market to run house errands and then the
enemy air strike happened and he was hit by shrapnel and died,"
said Fares al-Razhi, mourning his 14-year-old son.
"For my son, I will take revenge on Salman and Mohammed Bin
Zayed," he said, referring to leaders of Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates.
The Gulf Arab states are leading the alliance of Sunni Muslim
countries that intervened in Yemen's war in 2015 to try to
restore the internationally recognized government that was
expelled from the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in 2014.
The coalition said on Friday it would investigate the strike
after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the
attack and called for an independent probe.
But on Saturday, the Saudi state news agency SPA said Saudi
Arabia's mission to the world body had delivered a message to
Guterres reiterating that the military action was "legitimate"
and had targeted Houthi leaders responsible for "recruiting and
training young children".
TALKS PLANNED
The coalition initially said after the attack that the strike
had targeted missile launchers that were used by the Houthis to
attack the southern Saudi province of Jizan.
The Houthis' health minister Taha Mutawakil said last week that
the estimated number of casualties stood at 51 killed including
40 children, and at least 79 people wounded, of which 56 were
children. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported
the same toll on Friday, citing authorities in Saada.
The head of the Houthis' supreme revolutionary committee,
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, attended the funeral and blamed the
United States "for this crime and all the crimes that have been
committed against Yemen", the Houthi-held al-Masirah TV said.
The United States and other Western powers provide arms and
intelligence to the alliance, and human rights groups have
criticized them over coalition air strikes that have killed
hundreds of civilians at hospitals, schools and markets.
A U.S. military spokeswoman said U.S. forces were not involved
in Thursday's air strike. The U.S. State Department urged the
Saudi-led coalition to "conduct a thorough and transparent
investigation".
The coalition says it does not intentionally target civilians
and has set up a committee to probe alleged mass casualty air
strikes, which has mostly cleared it of any blame.
The Houthis have also been criticized by rights groups.
The U.N. special envoy to Yemen has been shuffling between the
warring parties ahead of holding consultations in Geneva on
Sept. 6 in an effort to end the conflict that has killed more
than 10,000 people and pushed the impoverished Arab country to
the verge of starvation, according to the United Nations.
(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing
by Alison Williams)
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