CAIRO – An explosion at a gas station sparked a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, health officials said Sunday.
The explosion occurred on Saturday in Zaher district in Bayda province, the Houthi rebel-led Health Ministry said in a statement. At least 67 other people were injured, 40 of them in critical condition.
The ministry said rescue teams were searching for the missing. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.
Images circulated online showing a massive fire that sent plumes of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and ablaze.
Bayda is controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade.
Elsewhere in Bayda, the Houthis attacked and looted the village of Hanaka al-Masoud in al-Qurayshiya district last week, according to the internationally recognized government. He said there were deaths but did not give figures.
Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said the attack came after a week-long siege of the village.
“This horrific attack targeted citizens’ homes and mosques, resulting in many casualties, including women and children, and destruction of property,” he said.
Human rights activist Riyadh al-Dubai said the Houthis detained dozens of men and ransacked homes, confiscating valuables such as gold, money, daggers and other possessions. He said Houthi shelling had continued incessantly day and night for more than five days.
The US Embassy in Yemen condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the “deaths, injuries and unjust detentions of innocent Yemenis perpetrated by Houthi terrorists are depriving the Yemeni people of peace and a better future.”
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when rebels took control of the capital Sanaa and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee south and then to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the United States, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including civilians and combatants, and in recent years has largely deteriorated to a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
