Civilian death toll mounting

AIRSTRIKES by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen are on a pace to kill more civilians than last year, according to a database tracking violence in the country, despite the US’s repeated claims that the coalition is taking precautions to prevent such bloodshed.

The database gives an indication of the scope of the disaster wrought in Yemen by nearly four years of civil war.

At least 57 538 people have been killed since the beginning of 2016, according to the data assembled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

That does not include the first nine months of the war, in 2015, which the group is still analysing. The data is likely to raise the figure to 70 000 or 80 000, ACLED’s Yemen researcher Andrea Carboni said. The organisation’s count is considered by many international agencies to be one of the most credible.

The numbers do not include those who have died in the humanitarian disaster caused by the war. The aid group Save the Children estimated hunger may have killed about 50000 children last year. The US has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Saudi Arabia, backing the fight to stop Shia rebels, who Washington and the coalition consider a proxy for Iran. That, along with tensions over the alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, may be key factors why US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month made their biggest push yet for an end to the war, calling for a ceasefire within 30days and for negotiations to resume. |