TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Wednesday that the Saudi-led airstrike on a wedding ceremony in Yemen which left 11 people killed is an instance of “war crime”.

He said that the Saudi-led coalition is taking revenge on civilians for its defeats in Yemen.

An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in Yemen’s northern province of Saada on Tuesday, killing 11 civilians and wounding 11 others, a local security official said, according to The Free Press journal.

The death toll is expected to rise as some of the injured are said to be in critical condition.

It is not the first time that wedding ceremonies are turned into tragedies. Just in April at least 20 people including the bride were killed when an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen. The dead were mostly women and children gathered in a tent set up for the wedding in the Bani Qayis district. According to the independent, hospital chief Mohammed al-Sawmali said the groom and 45 other wounded people were brought to the local al-Jomhouri hospital in the northwestern Hajjah province.

Since the beginning of the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen in March 2015, the country has been grappling with a humanitarian disaster.

The Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S. started the war on Yemen with the aim of reinstating ousted president Mansour Hadi. The war has led to famine and spread of cholera in the poor country. The UN has called it “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

NA/PA