At least 15 people in Yemen have died after summer monsoons triggered flash flooding in areas where infrastructure has been decimated by Saudi-led coalition bombing, it has emerged.
According to Houthi rebel controlled media, on Wednesday torrential rain flooded a highway between the city of Taiz and al-Maqatira killing at least 10 people as cars were swept away. Another eight people remain missing.
Homes and cars were also destroyed in Jibla in central Yemen in flooding that killed at least five people, eyewitnesses told local media and Anadolu news agency. Several more people are missing and feared dead.
“We haven't seen rainfall like this in 20 years,” Ali al-Kubati, a resident of al-Maqatira, told Anadolu.
“Trucks and cars have been swept away by the floodwaters and several people have lost their lives,” he added. Lack of proper drainage and sewer systems - as well as damage to existing roads and buildings - are feared to have contributed to the situation.
Rescue operations continued long into the night but no survivors or bodies were recovered.
The flooding will further complicate aid efforts in the conflict-riven country, where 70 per cent of the 22-million-strong population is reliant on some form of humanitarian aid after almost three years of full-scale conflict.
Riyadh and its allies have extensively bombed Houthi rebels in charge of Yemen’s capital and north since March 2015 at the request of the exiled, internationally recognised president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, fearing Iranian influence.
The campaign has been repeatedly criticised for causing an excessive loss of civilian life. Saudi blockades on Yemen’s ports and airspace have also been blamed for causing the current famine facing seven million people as well as the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, which has infected 500,000 people and killed more than 2,000.
Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and 56 other international non-governmental organisations urged the United Nations to establish an international body to investigate abuses they say may amount to war crimes committed by all the warring parties in Yemen.
Such a panel should “begin chipping away at the impunity that has been a central facet of Yemen's war,” HRW’S Geneva director John Fisher said in an open letter to the UN’s human rights council.
