Yemen air strike: Photo of injured girl and sole survivor sparks anti-war reaction

Updated about an hour ago

A young girl, injured in an air strike in Yemen, sits on a hospital bed with her face on her knee.

PHOTO: Buthaina Muhammad Mansour sits on a bed at a hospital after she survived the air strike. (Reuters: Khaled Abdullah)

MAP: Yemen

A photograph of the sole survivor of an air strike on Yemen's capital — a girl believed to be just four or five years old, who suffered facial injuries — has spread across social media, sparking outrage over the war's brutality.

Buthaina Muhammad Mansour was taken to hospital after the August 25 air strike by the Saudi-led coalition destroyed the Sanaa apartment she lived in with her parents.

Her parents, five siblings and uncle were among the 12 civilians killed in the blast.

The young girl suffered a concussion and skull fractures — and her eyes are still swollen shut — but doctors believe she will pull through.

A photo of Buthaina trying to open her eye has since gone viral, with social media users sharing photos of themselves imitating her, using the hashtags #I_Speak_For_Buthina or #ForEyes_Buthaina.

A United Nations report released earlier this month found Yemen had suffered more air strikes in the first half of this year than in the whole of 2016, increasing the number of civilian deaths and forcing more people to flee their homes in the country's long war.

In a statement, the US-backed Saudi-led coalition — which is the only fighting force with air power in Yemen — said it had bombed Buthaina's house by mistake.

A man carries a young girl through rubble after an air strike in Yemen.

PHOTO: A man rescues Buthaina Muhammad Mansour from the site of the air strike. (Reuters: Khaled Abdullah)

Access to Yemen, classified as the world's worst humanitarian disaster, is heavily restricted and for the past year its main airport has been forced shut by the coalition.

The war has destroyed much Yemeni infrastructure, including the main Hodeidah port, as well as hospitals, schools and roads, pushing the country to the verge of famine and causing a cholera epidemic that has killed some 2,000 people since April.

Figures released in August by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that the civilian death toll in Yemen as of April 2017 was at 8,053, with more than 45,000 injured, but the real figures could be much higher.