UN calls for accountability after Yemen funeral attack

The Houthi rebels blamed Saturday's strikes on a Saudi-led coalition which has been battling them since March 2015.

"We must do everything possible to ensure the authors of these heinous attacks face justice," UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in Paris after talks with French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

The envoy said the Saudi-led coalition must publish the results of its probe into the strikes, which also injured more than 525 people.

"We need to have the results of the investigation under way very quickly," he said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the airstrikes on a funeral ceremony was a "heartless attack on civilians and an outrageous violation of international humanitarian law."

He said an independent body to probe rights violations in Yemen must be set up.

"There must be accountability for the appalling conduct of this entire war," Ban told reporters.

The attack was among the deadliest in Yemen since the Riyadh-led alliance launched its aerial campaign against the rebels last year.

The coalition, which initially denied any involvement, said Sunday it would investigate the incident, after the US said it was reviewing support for the alliance.

"The coalition will immediately investigate this case along with... experts from the United States who participated in previous investigations," it said.

The alliance was already under intense international scrutiny over the alleged civilian death toll in its Yemen operations.

The Houthis swept into Sanaa in September 2014 and advanced across much of Yemen, prompting the coalition to intervene in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

More than 6,700 people, almost two-thirds of them civilians, have been killed and at least three million displaced since the Saudi-led coalition launched military operations in Yemen, according to the United Nations.