DAMASCUS, SYRIA (5:20 PM) – At least nine civilians, five of whom were only children, have been killed on Tuesday when an air bombardment by the Saudi Airforce struck a residential area in northwest Yemen, according to local sources.

The victims were killed during a Saudi air raid on the Kushar district of the Yemeni province of Hajjah, about 130 kilometres northwest of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a. Reportedly, the four women and five children were all members of one and the same local family.

Possibly in retaliation to the murderous air raid, Houthi loyalist troops of the Yemeni Armed Forces and allied fighters from the Popular Committees fired a Qaher M2 ballistic missile at an assembly of foreign mercenaries loyal to the Saudi-led coalition in the al-Hazm district of the northern province of Jawf. No reports have surfaced thus far of casualties and material losses amongst the pro-Saudi forces here.

Saudi Arabia has been mercilessly pounding Yemen since March 2015, after a popular revolution forced president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi into exile in favour of a Revolutionary Committee led by the Ansarullah movement (commonly known as Houthis) and the General People’s Congress. Riyadh seeks to reinstate Hadi, a staunch ally of Saudi Arabia, to power in Yemen, a country considered to be the poorest in the Arab world.

Over 12,000 people have been killed so far in the conflict, with much of Yemen’s infrastructure lying in ruin. The lack of basic hygiene and healthcare has furthermore caused an outbreak of cholera that has reportedly affected over 600,000 people. According to UN reports, some 17 million Yemenis are suffering from food shortage, of which at least 7 million face acute famine.