Yemen, Saudi and UAE ‘may have carried out war crimes’

GENEVA: Three experts working for the UN’s top human rights body say the governments of Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia may have been responsible for war crimes including rape, torture, disappearances and “deprivation of the right to life” during three years of escalated fighting against rebels in Yemen.

In their first report for the Human Rights Council, the experts also point to possible crimes by rebel Syiah militia in Yemen, which has been fighting the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen’s government since March 2015.

The experts have also chronicled the damages from coalition air strikes, the single-most lethal force in the fighting, over the last year.

They urged the international community to “refrain from providing arms that could be used in the conflict” – an apparent reference to the United States and Britain that help arm the Saudi-led coalition, as well as Iran, which the coalition has accused of arming the Houthis.

The experts visited some parts of Yemen as they compiled the report.

“(We have) reasonable grounds to believe that the governments of Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are responsible for human rights violations,” the report said. It cited violations including deprivation of the right to life, arbitrary detention, rape, torture, enforced disappearances and child recruitment. — AP