A Médecins Sans Frontières-run hospital in northern Yemen has been hit by a “projectile,” killing at least four and leaving 10 others injured. This is the most severe of three attacks on MSF facilities in Yemen since October.
The projectile fell on Shiara Hospital in Yemen’s Razeh district. Though the two earlier hospital attacks were by the Saudi-led coalition against Shia rebels called the Houthis, the origins of this strike are unknown, reports MSF.
Hospitals are protected in wartime, and MSF routinely communicates with all parties in conflict, sending the GPS coordinates of its facilities to avoid attack. Despite that, late last year the US bombed an MSF facility in Afghanistan’s Kunduz, killing at least 30 people.
“We reiterate to all parties to the conflict that patients and medical facilities must be respected and that bombing hospitals is a violation of international humanitarian law,” Raquel Ayora, the organization’s director of operations, said in a statement regarding the latest attack.
Yemen’s “fiendishly complicated” year-long civil war has already counted at least 3,000 civilian deaths, and the recently broken ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran will only make matters worse for the impoverished country.