At least 85 people, many of them children, have died in a crush in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, during a charity handout marking the end of Ramadan.
Three businessmen have been arrested over the incident, in which 322 people were injured, 50 of them seriously.
The circumstances of the crush and the large death toll underline the extent of poverty and the dire humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country.
The Houthi rebels who control Sana’a blamed the detained businessmen for offering to distribute money without first coordinating with their officials. The businessmen in turn accused the Houthis of trying for weeks to ban them from distributing cash and insisting that any distributions be run by the rebels.
Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, said his office had been pained and deeply saddened by the crush. “My heartfelt condolences go out to all Yemenis grieving today and I wish the injured a speedy recovery,” he said.
Sana’a Houthi authorities blamed the tragedy on overcrowding in a narrow alley in the old quarter of Sana’a leading to a school where the money was being distributed, and the “random distribution” of aid without coordination.
The interior ministry said it would be stepping up its control of the distribution of zakat – the 2.5% of their wealth above a minimum amount that Muslims are required to pay to poor and needy people each year, which is often distributed during Ramadan.
Witnesses said the crush started when people rushed in a panic towards the school after hearing gunfire and an electrical explosion. Armed Houthis had fired into the air in an attempt at crowd control, apparently striking an electrical wire and causing an explosion, according to two witnesses, Abdel-Rahman Ahmed and Yahia Mohsen.
TV footage showed a tightly packed crowd screaming and shoving, unable to move, while others attempted to haul stricken people out of the crush. Other images showed dead bodies on the ground as the panic continued. Afterwards, piles of abandoned sandals, clothing and a crutch littered the scene, while an investigator in white protective gear collected evidence.
“It was a huge crowd. They fell on me and I got hurt,” an injured child told Al Masirah TV from his hospital bed.
People had gathered after a businessman invited poor people to a school to receive about 5,000 rial (£16) each without any requirement to provide ID – an attempt to reduce the stigma of such distributions. The entranceway to Maeen school at Bab Al-Yemen in Sana’a is relatively narrow.
“It is a sign of the extreme poverty now in Sana’a that so many people had gathered,” said Saba Hamzah, a Yemeni scholar.
Hamzah accused the Houthis of refusing to pay salaries in areas they control as a way of population control. “A lot of merchants from Sana’a distribute charity because many people can only survive through this solidarity system,” Hamzah said. “But the Houthis want all this to be done through them because they want to get khums [a form of tax in Shia societies set at one-fifth of someone’s wealth].
“People gathered imagining they would come back to their homes with a tiny bit of happiness for their kids, but never returned,” she said.
Moammer al-Eryani, the information minister for the internationally recognised, Aden-based government of Yemen, said: “Those who bear responsibility for the incident are the ones who plundered food from the mouths of the hungry, imposed restrictions on international relief organisations, prevented merchants and philanthropists from distributing alms to the needy, plundered zakat and endowment funds, and imposed illegal fees and levies.”
The Houthis said they would pay about $2,000 (£1,600) in compensation to each family who lost a relative, while injured people would get about $400.
Yemen’s capital has been under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis since they descended from their northern stronghold in 2014 and removed the internationally recognised government. That prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 to try to restore the government.
In recent years, the conflict has turned into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, killing more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
More than 21 million people in Yemen – or two-thirds of the country’s population – need help and protection, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Among those in need, more than 17 million people are considered particularly vulnerable.
In February, the UN said it had raised only $1.2bn out of a target of $4.3bn at a conference aimed at generating funds to ease the humanitarian crisis.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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