At least 85 people were crushed to death and several hundred injured in Yemen’s capital Sana’a on Wednesday night. Panic arose in a crowd as alms were distributed. – Women and children are among the dead, says a source to AFP. The disaster is said to have occurred in connection with a charity event in the older parts of the city, in Bab al-Yemen, a few days before the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Local merchants had banded together and distributed alms of the equivalent of a hundred crowns each in a school on Wednesday evening, and hundreds of poor people quickly gathered. Shots in the air According to two witnesses that the AP news agency refers to, armed Houthis should have fired warning shots into the air in an attempt to control the crowd. But instead, one of the shots appears to have hit a power line which exploded, causing the panic. Data on the number of dead and injured vary. According to two AFP sources, the death toll has risen to 85 and more than 320 people were injured. The dead and injured have been taken to nearby hospitals, the Huthi rebels’ interior ministry says, according to the rebel-controlled Saba news agency. Three arrested Ministry spokesman Abdel-Khaleq al-Aghri blames the disaster on those responsible for the distribution, which is said to have taken place without notifying local authorities. Three people have been arrested. Sana has been controlled by the rebels since 2014, who forced the more internationally recognized government to flee. A broad military coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened the following year on the government’s side in the conflict that has continued ever since. More than 150,000 lives have been claimed in the war since then, but this year there has been hope for a resolution to the conflict, with the exchange of hundreds of prisoners and plans for peace talks to begin after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends the fasting month. Zakat, almsgiving to the needy, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Believers are reminded to be extra generous during the fasting month.
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