Around midnight on May 30th-May 31st, 2024, 14 civilians, including a sailor named Ayoub Abdullah Hassan Zaidan, were killed and 25 other civilians were injured, including one heavily injured sailor, as a result of the declared US-UK airstrike on the Coast Guard building located in the Salif (Al Sulayf) seaport in the Al Hudayhah Governorate, Yemen.

According to the Facebook post by Ahmad Hamdi, Ayoub Zaidan was originally from the Wahijah area in the coastal Dhubab District and he used to work as a sailor to transport goods from the ports of Djibouti. On the night of the strike, he sat with another sailor next to the Coast Guard building. While the strike had killed Ayoub, his colleague suffered heavy injuries – he lost his eyes and had his legs amputated.

Ahmad Hamdi shared a graphic picture of the dead body of Ayoub with his face covered in blood and his yellow T-shirt soaked in blood too. Along with this picture, he also shared images of Ayoub who was a skinny young man in his 20s.

Although the attack happened on Thursday, the first reports about casualties appeared on Friday morning. According to the Twitter/X user @mnslmbwlsn23185 who was referring to Yemeni media, the airstrikes took the lives of five people and injured 17. The same casualty estimation was provided in the tweets by @zakaria_sharabi, @Snd_pal, @PalinfoAr and others. However, these sources did not specify whether the casualties occurred at the radio station or sea post (USYEMBi019).

At 12:37 PM on Friday, the Twitter/X account @AlMayadeenLive reported about 16 killed civilians and 41 injured in the raids on Al Hudaydah, referring to the statement by Yemeni Armed Forces. However, this figure also included the casualties in the attack on the radio station (USYEMBi019) on the same day.

The Yemen Data Project reported that the strike on the coast guard in Al Hudayhah resulted in the death of 14 civilians injury to 25 others.

According to Abu Al Izz Nassan post, the airstrike also caused material damage to the Salif port. Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Red Sea Ports Corporation, Nasr Al-Nusairi, reviewed the damage suffered by the Salif port on Friday, May 31st. Abu Al Izz Nassan shared the pictures of the multiple men, among them Nasr Al-Nusairi, staying in front of the damaged building, and then walking among the rubble.

Al Mayadeen quoted Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, who stated that “this represents a clear targeting of civilian structures, a blatant violation of all international laws and a full-fledged war crime.” AP and the Washington Post both referred to videos posted by the Houthi-run Al Masirah satellite news channel which “aired images of one bloodied man being carried down stairs and others in the hospital, receiving aid”.

The UK Ministry of Defense released a statement that “On Thursday 30 May, UK forces participated in a joint operation with US forces against Houthi military facilities to degrade their ability to persist with their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden…Intelligence had confirmed two locations near Hudaydah as being involved with the Houthi anti-shipping attacks, with a number of buildings identified as housing drone ground control facilities and providing storage for very long range drones, as well as surface to air weapons used to impede coalition operations to safeguard shipping in the region. Furthermore, a set of Houthi facilities at Ghulayfiqah, further south on the Yemeni coast, had also been identified as being involved in the command and control of their anti-shipping campaign. Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s therefore conducted strikes on the target buildings at these three locations, using Paveway IV guided bombs.”

US CENTCOM released a statement that ” USCENTCOM forces alongside UK Armed Forces conducted strikes against 13 Houthi targets in Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist-controlled areas of Yemen in self-defense. It was determined that these UAVs and sites presented a threat to U.S. and coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region.” US officials told AP that the strikes hit “a wide range of underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control sites, a Houthi vessel and other facilities” and that “F/A-18 fighter jets involved in the strikes took off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea”.

The incident occured around midnight.