Alwaght- Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen are war crimes, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, urging UN to relist the anti-Yemen colaition on "List of Shame".
"The Saudi-led coalition carried out five apparently unlawful airstrikes in Yemen since June 2017 that killed 26 children among 39 civilian deaths," The international rights group said adding "The attacks, which struck four family homes and a grocery, in one case killing 14 members of the same family, caused indiscriminate loss of civilian life in violation of the laws of war. Such attacks carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes."
The Saudi-led coalition started a bloody aggression on Yemen in March 2015 to oust the popular Ansarullah movement and restore to power fugitive Abdul Rabbuh Mansour Hadi who resigned as president and fled to Riyadh. The Saudis have failed to achieve their stated objective and are now stuck in the Yemen quagmire while indiscriminately bombarding the impoverished stated on an almost daily basis.
Independent estimates put the death toll of the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen at over 13,000 mostly civilians including women, children and the elderly.
“The Saudi-led coalition’s repeated promises to conduct its air strikes lawfully are not sparing Yemeni children from unlawful attacks,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.
“This underscores the need for the United Nations to immediately return the coalition to its annual "list of shame" for violations against children in armed conflict,” she said.
“These latest airstrikes and their horrible toll on children should galvanize the Human Rights Council to denounce and act to investigate war crimes, and ensure that those responsible are held to account.”
On August 4, Saudi regime fighter jets flattened a home in Saada, killing nine members of a family, including six children, ages 3 through 12.
On July 3, an air strike conducted by Saudi-led coalition killed eight members of the same family in Taiz province, including the wife and 8-year-old daughter, the organization said.
HRW said it interviewed nine family members and witnesses to five air strikes that occurred between June 9 and August 4, and did not detect any potential military targets in the vicinity.
Nearly 1,200 children have been killed in Yemen, most in airstrikes by the Saudi military coalition, according to the latest UN figures on the 29-month aggression.
Based on interviews with survivors, witnesses and family members as well as site visits, a report by the UN's Human Rights Council (HRC) reveals an escalation in hostilities in the country, with more airstrikes in the first half of this year than in all of 2016.
Children account for 1,184 of those killed and 1,592 injured, mostly from coalition airstrikes, the UN report said. Information gathered by the UN human rights office shows apparent indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations with civilians directly targeted by Saudi-led bombardments
HRW called on United Nations Security Council to launch an international investigation into the abuses at its September session.
