Saudi Coalition May Have Committed War Crimes In Yemen

In a report released Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Amnesty worldwide says all sides fighting in Yemen have left a “trail of civilian death and destruction” in the conflict, killing scores of innocent people in what could amount to war crimes.

There is no official death toll but tens of Saudi soldiers have been reportedly killed by Houthi attacks.

On Thursday, Arab air strikes hit targets throughout northern Yemen, local officials said, as the front lines approach Houthi strongholds there.

The organisation has urged the UN Human Rights Council to establish an global commission of inquiry to independently and impartially investigate alleged war crimes committed during the conflict.

Ground battles intensified elsewhere in the central city of Taiz between coalition-backed fighters loyal to exiled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iranian-allied rebels supported by military forces run by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was forced out of power in 2012 after a yearlong of popular protests.

The coalition forces conducted unlawful air strikes in “densely populated residential neighbourhoods”, while armed groups carried out “indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in civilian areas”, Amnesty said in a report on the conflict.

Smoke billows following airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition on a weapons depot at a military airport, now controlled by Yemeni Shi’ite Houthi rebels, in the capital Sana’a on August 20, 2015. It said it had investigated eight coalition air strikes in Yemen that killed 141 civilians, including children. Forces loyal to Hadi claim to have driven the Houthis out of much of the country’s south; the rebels say they staged a strategic retreat.

Yemen relies on imports, but a near-total blockade led by Saudi Arabia has slowed shipments to the war-torn Arabian Peninsula country to a trickle.

In Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city, at least 11 civilians were killed and more than 35 injured by shelling that started on Wednesday, independent local officials, witnesses and medical officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the recent Saudi-led airstrikes on the Houthi-occupied cities and urged for a cease-fire to ease civilian suffering.

The militia sources said 13 internally displaced people returning to their homes in the area were killed by landmines planted by the Houthis amid the fighting.

O’Brien said the United Nations was scaling up its operations to bring relief and that more worldwide aid workers would be based outside of the capital Sanaa and Hodeida.