Houthi Missile Strike Kills 53 at Yemen Army Camp

At least 53 people were killed and more than 200 others were injured when Houthi ballistic missiles struck a training camp for Yemeni government forces in southern Yemen on Monday.

Local authorities said the dead numbered 53, making it one of the deadliest single attacks in the country's long civil war. The injured were described as mostly young recruits Haaretz.

The target was the al-Alam camp in the Jardan district of southern Shabwa province, a police and army training facility. Three ballistic missiles hit while recruits were lined up in formation, according to reports from the area The Guardian.

The wounded were taken to a hospital in Ataq, the provincial capital, where staff issued pleas for blood donations. Rashad al-Alimi, president of Yemen's UN-recognised government, said those killed were new recruits. Shabwa governor Awad bin Al-Wazir visited the wounded in hospital.

A Houthi military spokesperson claimed its forces had targeted Saudi mobilisations in the al-Alam camp run by Saudi officers, causing dozens of dead and wounded including Saudi officers. Houthi forces also cut the road between government-run Shabwa and Houthi-run Bayda governorate to the west.

Al-Alimi phoned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to ask the UN to classify the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, as a foreign terrorist organisation. He also sought support for an international move through the Security Council to designate the group as a terrorist organization, including enforcement of the ban on arms supplies to the Houthis.

Separately, a Saudi airstrike killed nine people, including five children and two women, according to the same reporting.