At least 100 people reported killed and injured in attack on facility in Saada as Saudi-coalition intensifies air strikes

A "horrific" air strike on a temporary Yemeni detention centre on Friday has left more than 100 people killed or wounded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), after a night of deadly bombings that underlined a dramatic escalation in violence.

"There are more than 100 killed and injured... the numbers are going up," said Basheer Omar, spokesperson for the ICRC in Yemen, citing hospital figures.

Gruesome scenes came to light in Saada, heartland of the Houthi movement, as rescue workers pulled bodies from destroyed prison buildings and piled up mangled corpses, according to footage released by the rebels.

The Saudi-led military coalition has intensified air strikes on what it says are Houthi military targets after the rebels conducted an unprecedented air assault on coalition member the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday, as well as further cross-border missile and drone launches at Saudi cities.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble around midday following the dawn strike in northwestern Yemen, which could end up being the worst since the 8 October 2016 Saudi-led bombing of a Sanaa funeral.

A Reuters witness said several of those killed were African migrants.

Further south in Hodeidah, video footage showed bodies in the rubble and dazed survivors after an air attack from the Saudi-led pro-government coalition took out a telecommunications hub. Yemen suffered a nationwide internet blackout, a web monitor said.

A statement from Save the Children said three children and more than 60 adults were killed in air strikes in Yemen on Friday. It gave no further details.

Citing even higher figures than the ICRC, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Saada's hospital had received about 200 people wounded in the prison attack and "they are so overwhelmed that they cannot take any more patients".

"There are many bodies still at the scene of the air strike, many missing people," Ahmed Mahat, MSF head of mission in Yemen, said in a statement. "It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence."

Warnings of reprisals

Saudi Arabia leads a western-backed military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to restore the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, which was kicked out of power by the Iran-aligned Houthis in 2014.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash warned the country would exercise its right to defend itself after Monday's Abu Dhabi attack, which was claimed by the Houthis.

"The Emirates have the legal and moral right to defend their lands, population and sovereignty, and will exercise this right to defend themselves and prevent terrorist acts pursued by the Houthi group," he told US special envoy Hans Grundberg, according to the official WAM news agency.

Yemen's war has been a catastrophe for millions of its citizens, who have fled their homes, with many close to famine in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The UN has estimated the war killed 377,000 people by the end of 2021, both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease.