SANA, Yemen — Airstrikes by a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition killed at least 70 people early Monday at a wedding celebration in a village on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, according to two local officials.
The aerial attack in Wahija, south of the port city of Mokha, was at least the third in the last 10 days in which large numbers of civilians were killed by Saudi-led coalition forces.
Abdullah al-Fadhli, a local council official who said he visited the scene about three hours after the airstrikes, said that bombs struck two wedding tents, killing dozens of people, including the groom.
The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting in Yemen since March, trying to beat back the advance of the Houthis, a rebel group from northern Yemen that took control of Sana, the capital, and drove the Yemeni government into exile.
Thousands of civilians have been killed during the conflict in Yemen, most of them as a result of the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign, according to human rights groups, international aid workers, and diplomats.
“All sides are showing disregard for human life, but most of the casualties are being caused by airstrikes,” Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said in New York on Monday in a speech to the General Assembly. The remarks were his sharpest criticism to date of the Saudi-led effort, which has received support from the Obama administration.