Graphic footage of boy clinging to dead father after Yemen wedding bombing emerges

Heart breaking footage has emerged of a young boy clinging to his dead father following the Saudi bombing of a wedding in the northern region of Yemen yesterday.

Graphic footage of boy clinging to dead father after Yemen wedding bombing emerges

Heart breaking footage has emerged of a young boy clinging to his dead father following the Saudi bombing of a wedding in the northern region of Yemen yesterday.

The graphic footage has been widely shared on social media and has been published on the Voice of America YouTube channel. It originates, they suggest, with the Al-Masirah TV station.

The station is overseen by the armed Houthi movement which controls much of northern Yemen and shows the young boy clutching what the station claim is his father's body in the Hajjah region.

The region was hit yesterday by a Saudi Arabian led air strike which killed at least 20 and injured up to 50 others attending a wedding.

WARNING: Graphic footage.

The bombing was the third deadly air strike in Yemen since the weekend. An attack on Sunday night hit a house elsewhere in Hajja, killing an entire family of five, according to al-Nadhri.

On Saturday, at least 20 civilians were killed when coalition fighter jets bombed a bus carrying commuters in western Yemen, near the city of Taiz, which has been locked in fighting for three years.

The Saudi-led coalition has declined to comment on the strikes.

The footage emerges as the chair of the International Development Select Committee in Britain urged the British government to bring forward a resolution on the conflict in Yemen to the UN Security Council.

Labour's Stephen Twigg called on ministers to "lead the international community to put peace on the table" amid pleas to the Government to suspend arm sales to Saudi Arabia.

Mr Twigg, asking an urgent question on Yemen, said the country needs "peace and a political settlement".

He asked: "Can I implore the Government to bring a resolution to the UN Security Council as a matter of urgency?

"Eight million people in Yemen are on the brink of starvation - surely the United Kingdom has a responsibility to lead the international community to put peace on the table?"

International Development Minister Harriett Baldwin urged all sides in the conflict to "exercise restraint" and to "continue to facilitate access for essential imports of food, fuel and medical supplies" into Yemen.

She added: "He (Mr Twigg) made some points about the important role that the UK can play in addition to the role as holding the pen at the United Nations in that peace process, and clearly it is in being a candid friend to those involved in the Saudi-led coalition, encouraging the process in terms of the joint investigative assessment team, the publication of those reports, 55 of which have been published so far, to recognise that we are not as the UK involved in any way in the targeting chain, and to reiterate the importance of the UK having the most rigorous export controls, and that involves the observation of international humanitarian law."

British shadow international development secretary Kate Osamor called on the Government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia in light of an air strike which hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, killing at least 20 people including the bride.

"Just yesterday appalling images emerged of an air strike hitting a wedding party. Twenty people were tragically killed, 45 more were wounded. The bride was killed and the groom taken to hospital," she said.

"Time and time again the Government implies this suffering will happen with or without the UK. Well, surely now is the time to make it very clear that Britain will not be complicit?"

Ms Osamor asked: "Will the Government now in light of the weekend's appalling air strikes on the wedding party finally suspend its arm sales to Saudi Arabia?"

- Digital Desk & PA

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