SANAA: Houthi rebel-controlled media in Yemen said Monday that US strikes hit a migrant detention center in the movement’s stronghold of Saada, killing at least 68 people. The US military has hammered the Iran-backed Houthis with near-daily strikes since March 15 in an operation dubbed “Rough Rider”, seeking to end their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Houthis launched strikes targeting the Zionist entity and Western vessels in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians. On Sunday, the US said it had hit more than 800 targets in Yemen since mid-March, killing hundreds of Houthi rebels including members of the group’s leadership. Just hours later, Houthi media said the latest barrage by US forces had hit a migrant detention center. The group vowed to continue its attacks on Red Sea shipping in a statement from its military spokesman Yahya Saree.

“The civil defense has announced that 68 African migrants were killed and 47 others wounded in the US attack targeting a center for illegal migrants in the city of Saada,” the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV said. According to a statement cited by Al-Masirah from the Houthi administration’s interior ministry, the center housed “115 migrants, all from Africa”. The broadcaster showed footage of bodies stuck under the rubble and of rescuers working to help the casualties.

Rescue workers carried a man who was moving slightly on a stretcher. A survivor could be heard calling “My mother” in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia. Other survivors interviewed by Yemeni television in hospital described being woken by the dawn blast. “I was thrown into the air and fell to the ground,” one said. The American administration had committed a “brutal crime” by bombing the Saada detention center, Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said on X.

Each year, tens of thousands of migrants brave the Eastern Route from the Horn of Africa, seeking to escape conflict, natural disasters and poor economic prospects by sailing across the Red Sea towards the oil-rich Gulf. Many hope for employment as laborers or domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, though they face a perilous journey through war-torn Yemen.

The UN migration agency, IOM, said it was closely monitoring the situation following the latest strike but said the facility in question was not being managed by their personnel. “It is imperative that all efforts are made to avoid harm to civilians and to protect those most vulnerable in these challenging circumstances,” the agency said in a statement. The Houthis began targeting shipping in late 2023, preventing vessels from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of global trade — forcing many companies into a costly detour around the tip of southern Africa.

In a statement that provided its most detailed accounting of the operation so far, the US military command responsible for the Middle East said it had “struck over 800 targets”, killing “hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders”. “The strikes have destroyed multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, and advanced weapons storage locations,” CENTCOM said.

Despite the strikes, the Houthis, who control large swaths of Yemen, have continued to claim attacks against both US vessels and the Zionist entity. In a statement on Monday, the Houthis said they had responded to the latest “attacks and massacres against civilians” by targeting the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier with “several cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones”. The rebels also claimed their latest “military operation” against the Zionist entity — the third in as many days — saying they had sent a drone towards “the occupied region of Ashkelon”, on the Zionist entity’s southern coast.

The United States first began conducting strikes against the Houthis under Joe Biden’s administration, but they have has intensified under President Donald Trump. CENTCOM said that “our operations have degraded the pace and effectiveness of their attacks” which are only possible “with the backing of the Iranian regime”. “We will continue to ratchet up the pressure until the objective is met, which remains the restoration of freedom of navigation and American deterrence in the region,” it added. – Agencies