Five women were killed and seven others wounded, including children, in war-torn Yemen when a Houthi projectile exploded at a wedding held on New Year's Day in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, officials said Saturday.
The hall lies near Hodeidah's airport, a frontline between the legitimate government forces and the Iran-backed Houthi militias.
It came just two days after at least 26 people were killed in blasts that rocked the airport of the southern city of Aden as government ministers got off a plane. The government blamed the Houthis for the attack.
Spokesperson of the national resistance forces and government representative in a UN-sponsored joint commission overseeing a truce, General Sadiq Dwaid Sadek Dwaid condemned the Hodeidah blast as "an odious crime committed by the Houthis against civilians".
He told AFP that the militias carried out the attack despite the Stockholm Agreement.
It clearly shows that the Houthis are determined to continue their escalation against the Yemeni people in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, he added.
Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani slammed the terrorist Houthis for the massacre.
Such acts demonstrate the militias’ mentality that is based on violence, murder and the disregard of people’s lives, he tweeted.
The crime is a result of the international community’s silence and disregard of the Houthis’ ongoing violations since their coup, he stressed.
