Saudi Arabia 'kills 19 civilians in bombing raid' - less than 24 hours before ceasefire deal starts

Attack follows reported air strikes against schools

The ceasefire deal is due to start on Monday (Getty)

Saudi-led air strikes have reportedly killed 19 Yemeni civilians in bombings of homes and a market - a day before a UN-brokered ceasefire is set to start ahead of peace talks to end eight months of war.

Villagers in al-Hajawara in northern Hajjah province said multiple air bombings killed 12 people inside their homes and wounded 30 others. Residents in the southern district of Qabatiya said 7 civilians were killed in an attack on a market.

A Saudi military spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi group is fighting a civil war against loyalists of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose embattled government has been backed by air strikes and ground forces from a mainly Gulf Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

Half of the nearly 6,000 people killed in the fighting and air strikes are civilians, including 637 children, according to the United Nations.

Yesterday, a human rights charity claimed Saudi Arabia had carried out a series of devastating bombing raids on Yemeni schools,

Amnesty International claim five air strikes, conducted between August and October 2015, deliberately and repeatedly targeted schools, killing five civilians and wounding at least 14 – among them four children, and disrupting the education of an estimate 6,500 children.

A seven-day ceasefire is due to start on Monday, the day before planned UN-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland, senior officials on both sides of the civil war said.

Previous peace talks in June failed and a ceasefire the next month quickly unraveled, but months of stalemate in ground combat and reports of increased pressure by Gulf Arabs' Western allies to end the war may encourage a political settlement.

Reuters