US airstrike kills 68 migrants in Yemeni prison

Yemen's Houthi rebel group has claimed that a US air strike hit a prison holding African migrants, killing at least 68 people and wounding 47 others.

Graphic footage aired by the Houthi-aligned al-Masirah satellite news channel showed what appeared to be dead bodies and others wounded at the site. The Houthi-run Interior Ministry said some 115 migrants had been detained at the site.

Footage from the site analysed by the Associated Press suggested some kind of explosion took place there, with cement walls seemingly peppered by debris fragments.

The strike in Yemen's Saada governorate, a Houthi stronghold, is the latest incident in the country's decade-long war to see African migrants from Ethiopia and other nations killed while attempting to cross Yemen for a chance to work in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The Houthi rebels allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the Saudi border. Migrants from Ethiopia have found themselves detained, abused and even killed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen during the war.

A 3 October 2022 letter to the kingdom from the UN said its investigators "received concerning allegations of cross-border artillery shelling and small arms fire allegedly by Saudi security forces, causing the deaths of up to 430 and injuring 650 migrants".