14 civilians hurt in Houthi missile attack in Asir

JEDDAH: Fourteen civilians were injured on Thursday by missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi group into Saudi Arabia, Saudi Civil Defense reported.
SPA quoted a Civil Defense spokesman as saying that 13 Saudi citizens and an expatriate from Bangladesh were injured in the attack in Dhahran Al-Janoub province in Asir region.
The victims suffered various injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment, said Civil Defense spokesman Col. Mohammed Al-Assemi.
Three houses were also damaged in the attack, he said.
Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab coalition trying to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi who was ousted by the Iran-aligned Houthi group last year.
King Salman Humanitarian and Relief Aid Center (KSRELIEF), meanwhile, signed a contract with Bureihi Hospital in Taiz to extend the provision of medical services.
Under Wednesday’s contract, 150 wounded people will receive treatment and medical services including surgical operations inside Taiz.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, Saudi Royal Court adviser and general supervisor of KSRELIEF, and Dr. Najeeb Al-Bureihi of the hospital signed the deal in the presence of Dr. Nasser Ba’oom, minister of public health and population and member of the Higher Committee for Relief in Yemen.
KSRELIEF supports hospitals and health sectors in Yemen through providing medical and health services, Al-Rabeeah said.
He said that KSRELIEF’s operations are in line with the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman to provide care for the Yemeni people and to fulfill their needs.
This is an extension of the efforts provided by the center through providing medical care for Yemeni brothers and supporting the health sector in coordination with the Higher Relief Committee, he added.
The center carries out a number of programs for the treatement of injured Yemenis with the support of the Yemeni Ministry of Health and Population and international organizations.
The Yemeni minister has thanked King Salman, the government and the people for supporting the Yemeni people.
He stressed that the King Salman Humanitarian and Relief Aid Center was the first relief group to break the Taiz siege and to deliver food aid and medical supplies to the city.
More than half of war-battered Yemen’s hospitals and clinics are closed or only partially functioning, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, warning a lack of adequate health services was increasing the risk of disease outbreaks.
Only 45 percent of 3,507 health facilities surveyed by WHO were fully functional and accessible, while more than 40 percent of districts faced a “critical” shortage of doctors, WHO said.

“These critical shortages in health services mean that more people are deprived of access to life-saving interventions,” WHO said in a statement.
“Absence of adequate communicable diseases management increases the risk of outbreaks such cholera, measles, malaria and other endemic diseases.”
UNICEF says the humanitarian disaster in the country has left 7.4 million children in need of medical help and 370,000 at risk of severe acute malnutrition.
Yemen’s Health Ministry announced a cholera outbreak in early October in the capital Sanaa. By the end of the month, WHO said the number of suspected cholera cases had ballooned to more than 1,400.
In 42 percent of 276 districts surveyed by WHO there were only two doctors or less, while in nearly a fifth of districts there were none.
WHO said new mothers and their babies lacked essential ante-natal care and immunization services, while people suffering from acute or chronic conditions were forced to spend more on treatment or forgo treatment altogether.