Airstrikes kill more than 40 and wound scores in Yemeni port city

 Fighter jets from a U.S-backed Saudi-led coalition struck a security complex in the western Yemeni city of Hodeidah late Saturday night, killing at least 43 and injuring scores more, according to Yemeni officials and local news reports.
Many of those killed were inmates being held in a prison on the site,
located in the city’s Al-Zaydiya enclave. Hodeidah, a port city on the Red Sea, is controlled by the rebel Houthis who control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen.
Saba, the government news agency, reported that 43 were killed and dozens wounded. Other news reports placed the death toll at least 60. Images of bodies covered in blankets, purportedly from the attacks, were shown on local news channels as well as on social media websites.
There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led military coalition.
In Yemen’s civil conflict, which began in March 2015, the Houthis are aligned with loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States and other western powers, are trying to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to power.
Hadi was driven into exile last year, and he is now based in the southern port city of Aden. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim monarchy entered the war in large part because of concerns of Iranian influence in the region. The Shiite theocracy is widely perceived to be backing the Shiite Houthi rebels.
The airstrikes in Hodeidah came a day after Hadi rejected a new United Nations peace proposal that would have sidelined him and given the Houthis prominent roles in a new government.
More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict, many of them civilians who were killed by Saudi-led coalition bombings, according to the United Nations. Millions more are suffering from hunger, illness, and displacement as the nation is now in the throes of a humanitarian disaster.
Earlier this month, a Saudi-led coalition airstrikes killed more than 100 people, most of them civilians, when warplanes targeted a funeral hall in Sanaa. The coalition later claimed responsibility, saying that the bombings were a result of receiving faulty information.