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Suspected US airstrike hits Yemen migrant centre, Houthi TV says 68 killed

A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. military was aware of the claims of civilian casualties.

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Corpses covered in dust and debris were scattered in the wreckage of a detention centre for African migrants in Yemen, after what Houthi-controlled television described on Monday as a U.S. airstrike that killed 68 people.

The attack was one of the deadliest so far in six weeks of intensified U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis, an Iran-aligned group that controls northern Yemen and has struck shipping in the Red Sea in what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians.

A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. military was aware of the claims of civilian casualties.

“We take those claims very seriously. We are currently conducting our battle-damage assessment and inquiry into those claims,” the U.S. official said.

The U.S. military has said it will not give detailed information about targets of its airstrikes for reasons of operational security.

Houthi-run Al Masirah television showed images of the aftermath of the strike in Saada, on a route used by African migrants to cross impoverished, conflict-riven Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia.

The footage showed bodies covered in dust amid blood-stained rubble. Rescue workers carried a man who was moving slightly on a stretcher. A survivor could be heard calling “My mother” in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia.

Other survivors interviewed by Yemeni television in hospital described being awakened by the dawn blast. “I was thrown into the air and fell to the ground,” one said.

The American administration had committed a “brutal crime” by bombing the Saada detention centre which held more than 100 undocumented African migrants, Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said on X.

The group vowed to continue its attacks on Red Sea shipping in a statement from its military spokesman Yahya Saree.

Reuters was able to verify the location and timing of the aftermath video through visible landmarks, such as a warehouse-like building with a shredded corrugated roof. Satellite images of the same location the previous day had shown the roof intact.

The location matched that of a migrant centre that had also been hit in a previous Saudi-led airstrike in 2022.

“It is unthinkable that while people are detained and have nowhere to escape, they can also be caught in the line of fire,” Christine Cipolla, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ delegation in Yemen, said.

The deadliest U.S. strike on Yemen so far came this month with an attack on a fuel terminal on the Red Sea that killed at least 74 people.

The U.S. military has said it has struck more than 800 targets since the current operation in Yemen, known as Operation Rough Rider, started on March 15. The strikes, the U.S. military said, have killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters and numerous Houthi leaders.”

On Monday, the U.S. Navy said that an F-18 aircraft and its tow tractor fell off the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier, which has been aiding strikes in Yemen from the Red Sea.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that initial reports were that the Truman made a hard turn because of a Houthi attack in the vicinity, but it was unclear if that had caused the F-18 to fall overboard. The Houthis have regularly attacked U.S. warships in the area, but none have been successful.

The Houthis said in an earlier statement on Monday that they targeted the aircraft carrier and its associated warships in response to what the group described as the U.S. massacres against civilians.

Rights advocates have raised concerns about civilian killings. Three Democratic senators wrote to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth on Thursday demanding an accounting for loss of civilian lives.

“Strikes pose a growing risk to the civilian population in Yemen,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. “We continue to call on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.”

A civil war in Yemen has raged for a decade between the Houthis and a government that controls the south, backed by Arab states, although fighting had eased for the past two years following a truce between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.

Hundreds of thousands of people seeking to escape poverty travel each year through the Horn of Africa and across the Red Sea to journey by foot through Yemen to the Saudi border, aid agency officials say.

More than 500 people drowned crossing the Red Sea last year as they tried to reach Yemen, according to the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency.

The Yemeni-Saudi border, which stretches west to east across a humid coastal plain, rugged scrub-covered mountains and high desert dunes, was an active frontline in the war for years and remained dangerous even after the truce paused major fighting.

Human Rights Watch reported in 2023 that Saudi border guards had used explosive weapons and gunfire to kill hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, including women and children, trying to cross the border. A Saudi official rejected that report.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has tried for years to reduce the number of undocumented migrants entering and working there, often in low-paid jobs. U.N. studies have shown it is home to an estimated 750,000 Ethiopians.

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Small plane crashes into San Diego neighborhood, killing at least 2

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At least two people were killed and eight others injured on Thursday when a small plane crashed in a San Diego neighborhood where military families lived, damaging houses and vehicles.

The crash occurred around 3:45 a.m. local time (1045 GMT) in a military housing complex in the Tierrasanta neighborhood, local officials said. The crash site is a little more than 2 miles east of Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport, Reuters reported.

It was unclear how many people were onboard the plane when it crashed. Police said they believed no one on the ground was killed but could not immediately confirm that.

“We had a plane that had come through this neighborhood, taking out one home,” San Diego Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Dan Eddy said at a news conference in front of a damaged home.

When fire crews arrived on scene, they found one home and multiple vehicles on fire, Eddy said.

The San Diego Police Department reported two people were confirmed dead and eight others were injured, as of 11 a.m. Thursday.

Only one person with minor injuries was transported to a hospital as of Thursday morning, Eddy said.

About 100 people were evacuated from homes in the neighborhood as of late Thursday morning.

The plane was identified as a Cessna 550 by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane, whose route originated in the Midwest, was bound for San Diego, Eddy said.

The tract where the crash occurred is managed by Liberty Military Housing, officials said.

“We are actively working with all military families affected, specifically within this region, because they may be out of their homes for a while,” said Captain Bob Heely, commanding officer of Naval Base San Diego.

Heely said he was working with Liberty Military Housing and the Red Cross to provide temporary housing to the affected families.

“As you can see, the damage behind us is incredibly significant, was life-threatening, and thank God nobody on the ground was killed,” Raul Campillo, a member of the San Diego City Council, said at a news conference near the crash site.

The crash will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

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Two Israeli embassy staffers killed in Washington shooting, suspect held

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Two Israeli embassy staff were killed in a shooting outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday night, and a suspect is in custody, officials said.

A man and a woman were shot and killed in the area of 3rd and F streets in Northwest which is near the museum, an FBI field office and the U.S. attorney’s office. They were a young couple about to be engaged to be married, the Israeli ambassador said, Reuters reported.

Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said a single suspect who was seen pacing outside the museum before the event was in custody. The suspect, tentatively identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, chanted “Free Palestine, Free Palestine,” in custody, she said.

The suspect had no previous contact with police, she added.

President Donald Trump condemned the shooting. “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” he said in a message on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also condemned the incident.

Tal Naim Cohen, a spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, said two of its staff members were shot “at close range” while attending a Jewish event at the museum.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X:

“We will bring this depraved perpetrator to justice.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said he and his team had been briefed on the shooting.

“While we’re working with (Metropolitan Police Department) to respond and learn more, in the immediate, please pray for the victims and their families,” he wrote on X.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, called the shooting “a depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.”

“Harming diplomats and the Jewish community is crossing a red line,” Danon said in a post on X. “We are confident that the US authorities will take strong action against those responsible for this criminal act.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro were at the scene of the shooting.

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Trump calls his own foreign aid cuts at USAID ‘devastating’

Washington was funding 17% of the country’s HIV budget before the cuts. In the months since, testing and monitoring of HIV patients across South Africa has decreased, Reuters has reported.

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President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its aid programs worldwide have been “devastating.”, Reuters reported.

Speaking beside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit, Trump was asked about his cutting most foreign aid by a reporter who said the decision had significant impacts in Africa.

“It’s devastating, and hopefully a lot of people are going to start spending a lot of money,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“I’ve talked to other nations. We want them to chip in and spend money too, and we’ve spent a lot. And it’s a big – it’s a tremendous problem going on in many countries. A lot of problems going on. The United States always gets the request for money. Nobody else helps.”

The State Department, which manages USAID, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration has repeatedly defended the cuts, saying they were focused on wasted funds. The gutting of the agency, largely overseen by South Africa-born businessman Elon Musk, is the subject of several federal lawsuits, read the report.

The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.

The U.S. spent half a billion dollars on South African aid in 2023, mostly on healthcare, the most recent data shows. Most of that funding has been withdrawn, though it is unclear exactly how much.

The cuts have had an effect on the country’s response to the HIV epidemic. South Africa has the world’s highest burden of HIV, with about 8 million people – one in five adults – living with the virus, Reuters reported.

Washington was funding 17% of the country’s HIV budget before the cuts. In the months since, testing and monitoring of HIV patients across South Africa has decreased, Reuters has reported.

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