20 Indians killed in Saudi-led air strike in Yemen, MEA ascertaining reports

NEW DELHI: Twenty Indians died in a Saudi-led coalition air strike on oil smugglers in Yemen, Reuters reported late on Tuesday.

MEA was yet to confirm until late in the night if those killed were indeed Indians. India shut down its embassy in Yemen earlier this year, a fallout of the civil war which has engulfed the nation since the Iran- backed Houthi rebels seized capital Sanaa. All Indians willing to leave the country had been evacuated.

"We are ascertaining the facts about the reports," MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup said when asked about reports that 20 Indians had been killed in Saudi-led strikes in Yemen.

The Houthi-run state news agency Saba also said that 15 citizens were killed in air strikes on Sanaa, and medical sources said at least 15 civilians were killed in similar attacks on Monday. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the figures.

The alliance, made up mainly of Gulf Arab countries, has increased air strikes on Sanaa and other parts of the country since Friday, when a Houthi missile attack killed at least 60 Saudi, Bahraini and United Arab Emirates soldiers at a military camp east of Sanaa.

They were part of a force preparing to assault the capital, which the Iranian-allied Houthis seized last September.

Friday's attack was the deadliest yet for Gulf soldiers in the war and may herald a turning point as Saudi-allied countries appear to be committing to a ground war they had so far avoided.

In western Yemen, local residents and fishermen said planes from the Saudi-led alliance struck two boats at al-Khokha, a small port near Hodeidah used by Indians to smuggle badly needed fuel supplies into the country, killing 20 of them.