Alwaght- The European countries that assist the US with its deadly drone strikes across the world could be held accountable for the unlawful and indiscriminate massacre of civilians, Amnesty International has warned on Friday.
The London-based rights organization issued the warning in a weekly report, addressing long-held concerns over the use of UAVs by the US to kill people throughout the world.
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, US drone strikes have killed up to 1,551 civilians since 2004 in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Amnesty International and others have exposed how some drone strikes have violated international law, and may amount to extrajudicial executions or war crimes.
The European countries that contribute essential assistance to the program should evaluate whether their help makes them complicit in such killings and work to make the program more transparent to public scrutiny, according to Amnesty.
The assistance, as the report indicated, includes providing data for authorities in Washington to choose targets, and hosting essential infrastructure required for conducting drone attacks.
“The USA relies heavily on assistance from many States, including European States. The United Kingdom (UK), Germany, the Netherlands and Italy have played a significant role in supporting the US’s lethal operations, including its drone program,” Amnesty International said.
The rights group warned that the four nations could be made responsible under international law for whatever violations the US has committed with their help.
“Given the well-known and serious concerns regarding the US lethal drone program’s compliance with international law, providing material or intelligence support to US strikes could mean that the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy are responsible for assisting in potentially unlawful US drone operations and may have violated their own obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” the report said.
The United States carries out drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Washington claims the strikes target militants. Facts on the ground, however, indicate that civilians are the main victims of such attacks. The number of civilian deaths has increased 215-percent from 2016 to 2017.
The increase in numbers has occurred while it is often difficult to confirm the circumstances or death tolls in war-torn areas.
US armed forces and intelligence services have been accused of hiding details and manipulating numbers to make drone strikes appear more accurate.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of US drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia since US President Donald Trump took office, according to a report published in December by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
In 2013, UK-based rights group Amnesty International said the US could be guilty of war crimes by carrying out extrajudicial killings by its drones.
