Airwars assessment
68 civilians housed in Sadaa’s Remand Detention Centre were killed and at least 47 injured by alleged US airstrikes on the morning of 28 April, 2025. The Centre primarily held migrants coming from African countries and was believed to be holding 115 people at the time of the strike. Yemen is a frequent route for African migrants hoping to reach the gulf states; such migrants, when intercepted by Houthis, are typically sent to detention camps.
@TvAlmasirah reported that 35 bodies had been recovered, though another 30 were still missing. Civil Defense crews later reported the deaths of 68, a death toll that was corroborated by Al Jazeera. Other sources reported that the injury toll could be as high as 65.
@TvAlmasirah shared photographs of bodies – some severed – amid rubble in the nearly completely destroyed building. A video shared by the same source showed brutalised remains, blood dried to dirt; multiple bodies are visible. In the background, the videographer can be heard praying; his voice is soft – “God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs”. Balqees TV emphasised that those killed were not “fighters with weapons” but instead migrants looking for better lives. They ended up “dead or wounded” in a war they were “not part of”.
Facebook user Majd Al-Madani Saada included photographs of extraction efforts. Bodies collected by the Red Crescent were tagged with information cards then laid on the bodies. One man, laid on white plastic wrapping, has an information card proclaiming him a victim of the Detention Centre strike. In death, his identity has been lost: under “name” is recorded only “Anonymous”.
Rescue teams from both the Yemeni Red Crescent and Civil Defense sifted through rubble to extract the injured. The wounded were taken to the Republican Hospital; video shared by @TvAlmasirah shows numb faces, people shifting to accommodate injured limbs, a man holding his head, eyes closed. Most of the injuries were deemed critical. Especially severe cases were sent to hospitals in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
The Vice President of the Republican Hospital, Dr. Ali Al-Hamzi, met with “representatives of government agencies, humanitarian organizations, and African communities” following the strike where they “toured the hospital wards, where they were briefed on the health conditions of the African wounded [and heard] about the nature of their injuries and the care provided to them”.
Amnesty International spoke with “three individuals who work with African migrant and refugee communities in Yemen” and ICRC staff, including two of whom had visited the migrant detention center, two nearby hospitals, and their morgues and confirmed seeing “a high number of casualties” and said that all the migrants detainees held at the detention center were Ethiopian, with the exception of one Eritrean. According to one activist who visited the Republican hospital and al Talh General hospital in Sa’ada, 25 injured migrants were receiving treatment at the Republican hospital while nine were receiving treatment in al Talh General hospital: “They suffered from different fractures and bruises. Some were in critical condition and two had amputated legs… The morgue in the Republican hospital was overwhelmed and there was no place left for tens of corpses that were still left outside the morgue for the second day.”
Amnesty International spoke with another activist who spoke with dozens of the injured migrants: “They told me they were sleeping when they were hit with the first missile at around 4 a.m. in the morning (…) They said they woke up to find dismembered bodies around them. You could see the shock and horror on their faces. Some were still unable to speak because of the trauma.”
Annedaa News reported that the Houthi Ministry of Interior claimed the detention centre “was under the supervision of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Red Cross”. IOM specified that it “does not directly manage” the centre but was “closely monitoring the situation”. For their part, IOM expressed the organisation was “deeply saddened by the reports of the tragic loss of life in Sadaa, Yemen, where many migrants are believed to have been killed or injured”.
A remaining missile, according to @TvAlmasirah, did not explode on impact; the “relevant authorities are handling the object with extreme caution”. @TvAlmasirah further alleged that the “American GBU-39 JDAM” was used, a statement corroborated by Mine Action Yemen, who reported that their “Technical teams found remnants of an American GBU-39 JDAM bunker-buster bomb” and that the “effects and destruction found in the prison prove that this type of American weapon was used”. This information was corroborated by Amnesty International, which analyzed photos of remnants identified as “at least two 250-pount precision-guided GBU039 Small Diameter Bombs.” Images of the munitions were shared by @almlsyyemen and the Open Source Munition Portal, and can be found here: 1340, 1347, 1348, 1350, 1351, 1352.
Almashhad News reported that the strike “targeted a center officially used as a correctional facility” but claimed that “field reports indicate that the Houthis have converted it into a security operations headquarters, keeping the migrants inside despite calls for their evacuation”. The people held inside were detained “for months in inhumane conditions, without being able to communicate with their families or international organizations”. According to Amnesty International, “The U.S. should have known Sa’ada prison was a detention facility, that has been used for years by the Huthis to detain migrants and that it was regularly visited by ICRC.”
Quoted by The Washington Post, US Central Command stated “We are currently conducting our battle-damage assessment and inquiry into those claims [of civilian harm]”.
All sources who named a belligerent identified the US military.
The incident occured at approximately 4:00 am local time.
Summary
Sources (81) [ collapse]
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