Sana’a (EFE).- At least 78 people have died and dozens have been injured in a stampede in the old city of Sana’a, the Yemeni capital controlled by the Shiite Houthi rebels, at a unilaterally organized aid distribution center for the holiday of end of the holy month of ramadan.
As reported by insurgent health sources, “at 8:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT), the Al Tharwa Hospital Authority received the wounded from the unfortunate stampede that occurred in the capital Sana’a during the distribution of sums of money by a merchant.” .
For its part, the rebel Ministry of Health has confirmed that the number of victims is 78 dead, and 139 wounded, including 13 very seriously.
The spokesman for the Houthi Interior Ministry, General Abdul Khaliq al Ajri, considered what happened tonight in the capital as a “tragic and painful accident in which dozens of people died from a stampede during the random distribution of sums of money by part of some merchants without coordination with the Ministry of the Interior”.
In statements to the Saba news agency, the head of the Houthi ministry indicated that two of the merchants responsible for this distribution were arrested, while the prosecutor’s office immediately mobilized to investigate what happened.
One of the worst tragedies
Until now, the reasons why this deadly stampede began, one of the worst in the world in the last decade, is unknown.
In a video published by Al Masira, a crowd is seen trapped among the people pressing to get out in one of the streets of the old city of Sana’a.
The Yemeni capital has been controlled by Iranian-backed rebels since 2014, when a conflict began that forced the internationally recognized Yemeni government into exile in Aden in the south of the country.
The war in Yemen, in which Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015 as the leader of a military coalition, has caused the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.