Stampede in Yemen: Around 80 people killed, 100 injured on eve of Eid

New Delhi:  At least 80 people were killed and more than 100 injured including women and children in a stampede that broke out in a school compound in Sanaa, Yemen’s Capital during a Ramadhan charity distribution, on the eve of Eid, several news agencies quoting officials reported.

The dead and injured have been moved to nearby hospitals and those responsible for the distribution were arrested, the officials said in a statement carried by the Houthis' Saba news agency. The Houthi interior ministry did not provide an exact toll but said "Dozens of people were killed due to a stampede during a random distribution of cash money by some merchants".

The distribution in the Bab al-Yemen area of Houthi-controlled Sanaa came days ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim festival that follows at the end of the month-long Ramadan fasting.

Videos circulating on social media showed bodies lying on the ground inside a large complex as people clamoured around them.

Yemen's conflict broke out in 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the internationally recognised government. Fighting in Yemen has triggered what the United Nations describes as one of the world's worst humanitarian tragedies.

According to the United Nations, around 22 million - two-thirds of the population - need humanitarian assistance.

Last week there has been a vast prisoner exchange operation in Yemen between Yemen rebels and Saudi Arabia after a truce was reached between the two countries.

AFP news agency reported that the Yemen rebels had reached an agreement in Bern, Switzerland, to exchange more than 880 prisoners including Saudis and Sudanese. The last operation of this scale dates to October 2020, when more than 1,000 prisoners were released.

Saudi Arabia has intervened in Yemen since 2015 to support pro-government forces against the Houthis, rebels supported by Iran, and which, in eight years of conflict, have seized vast swathes of the northern and western territory of this poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.