Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday, August 18 said it was evacuating its staff from six hospitals in northern Yemen after 19 people were killed in an air strike on one of its facilities earlier this week, AFP reports.
Monday's Saudi-led coalition strike on Abs hospital in the rebel-held province of Hajja was the fourth and deadliest attack yet on an MSF facility in war-torn Yemen, according to the charity.
The decision to pull staff out "is never taken lightly", the Paris-based aid agency said in a statement, accusing the coalition of "indiscriminate bombings and unreliable reassurances".
"Given the intensity of the current offensive and our loss of confidence in the SLC's (Saudi-led coalition's) ability to prevent such fatal attacks, MSF considers the hospitals in Saada and Hajjah governorates unsafe for both patients and staff," it added.
The hospitals will continue to be manned by local workers and volunteers, MSF said, according to AFP.
Yemen has been gripped by unrest since Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels and allied loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh overran the capital Sanaa in September 2014.
The violence increased after a Saudi-led Arab coalition launched a military campaign in March last year to help shore up the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
The coalition stepped up its air strikes this month after UN-mediated peace talks between the rebels and Yemen's internationally backed government were suspended.
