By Mohammed Ghobari
SANAA (Reuters) - Jets belonging to a Saudi-led coalition killed at least 20 people at a wake in northern Yemen on Sunday, local tribesmen said, as warplanes pounded Houthis and allied forces behind a missile strike that killed dozens of Gulf Arab soldiers.
The air strikes targeted troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, an ally of the Houthis, across the country and hit a Houthi base in what was the al-Imam University, a religious school in northern Sanaa, locals said.
But residents said the deadliest strike was in al-Jouf province north of Sanaa, where warplanes hit a wake for a local who had been killed by Houthi gunfire, in what was apparently an accidental strike by the coalition.
A spokesman for the coalition could not immediately be reached for a comment.
In Sanaa, residents said buildings had been leveled as explosions rang through the night and morning before stopping around noon. There were unconfirmed reports of two deaths.
The al-Sabeen maternity and children's hospital said it had also been damaged, with patients trapped inside by the bombardment, and appealed to international organizations to help it evacuate patients.
"The hospital had been badly damaged due to the bombardment of areas around it," the Houthi-run state news agency quoted a hospital statement as saying.
The Saudi-led coalition says it does not target civilian facilities. But on Saturday, at least 27 members of two families were killed in Sanaa by air strikes targeting Houthi positions in the city, according to hospital officials.
DEADLY ATTACK
On Friday, the Iranian-allied Houthis attacked a weapons storage facility in Marib, where supporters of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi had been massing troops and equipment in preparation for an assault on Sanaa.
The attack killed 45 soldiers from the United Arab Emirates, 10 Saudis, five Bahrainis, and four Yemenis.
It was the heaviest toll suffered by the Saudi-led alliance since it began its air war in March to try to restore Hadi to power after the Houthis began advancing on his main base, the southern port city of Aden.
Hadi was installed in 2012 under a Gulf Arab-sponsored deal that saw Saleh, Yemen's leader of three decades, step down after months of street protests.
Hadi fled Sanaa earlier this year to the southern city of Aden after a month under virtual house arrest by the Houthis who had captured the city last year. Hadi was later forced into exile in Saudi Arabia when the Houthis advanced on the city in March.
UAE forces were important in helping Hadi's forces drive the Houthis and their allies out of Aden, a big win for the Arab coalition.
But security has yet to be restored in the port city, where vandals dug up several graves and smashed headstones at a cemetery that Britain, the city's former colonial ruler, had maintained after it left some 50 years ago, a local official said.
A local official accused the Houthis of hiring the vandals to destabilize the city and prevent order returning. The Houthis say al Qaeda is operating in areas under Hadi's control.