SANAA: Hundreds of terrified civilians fled the Yemeni capital on Thursday after a sleepless night of heavy Saudi air raids.
“I’m leaving with my family — Sanaa is no longer safe,” said Mohammed, loading personal belongings onto a minibus in a northern district of Sanaa.
Huge explosions rocked the city throughout Wednesday night as Saudi-led warplanes pounded an air base in the Bani Huwat area of north Sanaa next to the international airport and other sites.
Seven homes neighbouring the base were hit, killing at least 14 civilians, a civil defence source said.
In a grim landscape of cars shredded by blasts and roads strewn with rubble, a man sat dazed in what remained of his home as rescue workers extracted survivors from ruins around him.
“Why did they intervene now … when the Huthis have already seized most parts” of the country? asked Safwan Haidar, a neighbour.
For Mohammed and most Sanaa residents it was a sleepless night of bombardment by Saudi warplanes countered by Huthi anti-aircraft fire.
“My children were terrorised,” he said as they left for his hometown of Ibb in central Yemen.
The civil defence source said children and women were among the 14 killed as seven homes crumbled in the bombardment.
Ansarullah fighters, who normally keep journalists at bay, allowed the media free access as nervous crowds gathered at the scene.
“These Saudi, American and Israeli crimes will not deter us. On the contrary, our determination will increase to wipe them out because they’re hitting civilians and the innocent,” a rebel fighter said.
The rebels’ television station Al-Massir aired urgent appeals for medics to head to Sanaa hospitals.
Sanaa schools stayed closed on Thursday and long lines of cars formed at petrol stations. “Everyone’s scared petrol will run out,” said Hammoud, waiting in his car.
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