By Staff, Agencies

Nearly 70 African inmates were killed and over 50 others wounded after a US airstrike targeted a detention center in Yemen’s Saada governorate, according to media reports.

Yemen’s Al-Masirah news network reported on Monday that the strike hit a facility in the city designated for African migrants, which housed around 115 inmates. The exact number of casualties remains uncertain as rescue operations continue.

Civil defense teams have been working since dawn to extinguish fires and retrieve victims from the rubble, while ambulance crews attempt to transport the wounded to the city’s already overwhelmed hospitals.

Initial footage from the site reveals a horrific scene, with dozens of bodies and scattered remains being recovered amid the destruction.

Local authorities stated that one of the US-fired missiles failed to explode near the detention center.

Yemen’s Interior Ministry condemned the attack, calling it a "full-fledged war crime" and a blatant violation of international humanitarian law. According to Al-Masirah, at least 68 inmates have been confirmed dead, with the death toll expected to rise as more bodies are recovered.

The strike on the detention center comes amid a broader escalation in US airstrikes on Saada governorate late last night. In addition to the detention center, the US military also targeted Kitaf district with three separate raids and the surrounding areas of the city with two more strikes.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry emphasized that the detention center was under the supervision of the International Organization for Migration [IOM] and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [IFRC].

It stressed that the US assault was deliberate and constituted a clear violation of all international humanitarian laws and conventions.

The US military’s Central Command has so far not provided any comment on the attack. In a brief statement, it said:

“To preserve operational security, we have intentionally limited disclosing details of our ongoing or future operations … We are very deliberate in our operational approach, but will not reveal specifics about what we’ve done or what we will do.”