Saudi Arabia says it shot down missile fired from Yemen

They are banned under a 2008 treaty for the high civilian toll they can cause.

The U.S. official declined to directly comment when asked whether the United States is at all culpable for Saudi Arabia’s use of cluster munitions, given the American arms shipments and political support for the bombing campaign. Moreover, civilians and eyewitnesses in Sana’a said that a missile launched by t…

“Many homes and a local kindergarten with newly pockmarked walls and broken windows” could be seen in the attacked residential areas, the human rights organization said.HRW also oversees an global treaty banning cluster munitions. “During a field visit to the village of Al-Odair, in Haradh District, an OHCHR team found 29 cluster submunitions near some banana and mango plantations”, he said.

Civilians often wind up victims of unexploded subordinance – sub-bombs of the parent cluster bomb host – which can be concealed in the landscape or picked up by unwitting children who mistake them for toys. “It added that parts of the bomb remnants had markings indicating that it was manufactured in the USA in 1978”. Nearly 6,000 people have been killed since the coalition entered the conflict last March, almost half of them civilians.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out civil war between pro-government forces and Houthi rebels backed by troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, followed by the intervention of a Saudi-led Arab coalition vowing to restore Hadi’s legitimate government.

But civilian infrastructure, including a school for the blind, have reportedly been hit.

Also on Thursday, a statement said the nation had prohibited the import of goods that were Saudi. And while numerous human rights organizations have condemned the acts of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, the US has refused to voice concern over its ally’s actions.

Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen have intensified cross-border rocket attacks since late past year. Missiles were fired on Tuesday which injured three people.

“We continue to urge all sides in the conflict, including the Saudi-led coalition, to take pro-active measures to minimize harm to civilians and to investigate all credible allegations of civilian harm”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.