The panic broke out when some merchants started handing out money to poor people in the capital Sana, says a spokesman for the Houthi rebels on Thursday night.
The merchants were behind an event that was not coordinated with local authorities. They handed out money to several hundred poor people who showed up in the Bab al-Yemen area of the old city of Sana’a. This is according to the Houthi-controlled Ministry of the Interior.
The event took place indoors in a school building.
– At least 85 lost their lives and more than 322 were injured, a Houthi official told the French news agency AFP.
– Women and children were among the dead, he tells the news agency.
The figures are confirmed by spokespersons for the healthcare system.
Eyewitnesses Abdel-Rahman Ahmed and Yahia Mohsen say armed Houthi soldiers fired into the air in an attempt to gain control of the crowd. Shots reportedly hit a power line which exploded. It triggered panic and people started running and trampling each other, say the eyewitnesses.
The Houthis say that two organizers of the distribution have been arrested and that the incident is now being investigated.
Yemen’s capital is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militia, which ousted the internationally recognized government from power in 2014. The following year, Saudi Arabia deployed forces in cooperation with other countries to try to restore governance.
The conflict has since developed into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Over 150,000 people, both combatants and civilians, have been killed during these years in what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
(©NTB)
