Al Houthis ‘killed 14,220 civilians’
Yemen government gives militia 24 hours to show up for Geneva talks
Al Houthi mortar attacks in Yemen have killed 14,220 civilians, including 1,500 children and 865 women, the country’s human rights minister said yesterday.
Mohammad Askar said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi that Al Houthi attacks had left 31,127 people injured, including 4,080 children and 4,253 women.
Askar also denounced a report by UN human rights experts — which said some coalition air strikes may amount to war crimes — as inaccurate and biased. He said the report had several methodological fallacies and misconstrued the facts of the conflict, ignoring Al Houthis’ many war crimes and the underlying reasons for the conflict — the coup carried out by the Iranbacked militia against Yemen’s legitimate government.
This came as a Yemeni government delegation in Geneva for peace talks yesterday gave Al Houthi representatives 24 hours to get to the Swiss city, failing which it would “leave”. The coalition said it had provided an aircraft for Al Houthis to fly to Geneva but they rejected it. Yemeni sources said the government issued a permit for Al Houthi aircraft to fly from Sana’a airport.
AYemeni government delegation in Geneva for scheduled peace talks yesterday gave Al Houthi militia representatives 24 hours to get to the Swiss city, failing which it “will leave”.
The coalition said it had provided an aircraft for Al Houthis to fly to Geneva to participate in the UN talks but they rejected it.
Yemeni sources said the government issued a permit for Al Houthi aircraft to fly from Sana’a airport.
“We have this scheduled meeting since two months ago ... Today we are alone,” delegation member Hamza Al Kamali told journalists, and claimed the militia was making it clear “they don’t want peace. We want them to come, and we are pushing them to come. However, we will leave, if they don’t come... in the next 24 hours.”
The ultimatum came after Al Houthis refused to attend the talks unless the UN met a list of conditions, including transporting wounded militiamen to Oman for treatment, and a guarantee that their own delegation would be allowed to return home.
The Saudi-led coalition said it had permitted an Al Houthi plane to take off from the militiaheld capital Sana’a, but Al Houthis reacted “recalcitrantly”.
Al Arabiya quoted Yemeni sources who accused the militiamen of citing “flimsy pretexts” in order to derail the new round of talks.
An Al Houthi official said his group would not go to Geneva unless its demands are met, AFP reported.
Hameed Assem, a member of the militia delegation, said the UN had not met the conditions that had been previously agreed.
The Geneva consultations, the fourth since Yemen’s war started nearly four years ago, cap a flurry of meetings that UN envoy Martin Griffiths recently held with Yemen’s warring sides.
Envoy hopeful
Griffiths said yesterday he remained “hopeful” that Al Houthis will travel to Geneva, adding he was “hopeful to see the Sana’a delegation (Al Houthis) present (in Geneva) to expedite the political process”.
Led by Foreign Minister Khalid Al Yamani, a Yemen government delegation arrived in Switzerland on Wednesday.
The talks are expected to focus on humanitarian issues including the release of prisoners held by both sides and unrestricted aid deliveries.
The prospective steps are designed to build confidence between the warring sides. However, observers do not expect a breakthrough due to intransigence shown by Al Houthis in previous rounds held in Switzerland and Kuwait.
In recent months, Al Houthis have intensified firing missiles into neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Saudi air defences late on Wednesday intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired by Al Houthis towards the direction of the southern region of Najran.
The shrapnel injured 37 people, according to Al Arabiya.
Investigation
Meanwhile, the coalition said it had asked its legal team to investigate possible collateral damage in an operation launched by its jets last month near Yemen’s Red Sea city of Hodeida. Spokesman for the alliance Colonel Turki Al Maliki said that documents, related to the August 25 operation in the district of Al Durhaimi, have been sent to the Accidents Assessment team to investigate and announce findings. The operation targeted Al Houthi militiamen in the area, the official said
Last week, the coalition regretted “mistakes” in a deadly air strike launched earlier in August in Saada, the militants’ stronghold near the Saudi border.
Al Houthis staged a coup against the Yemeni government and overran the capital Sana’a in late 2014.
In March 2015, the coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, intervened in Yemen at a request from the government against Al Houthis after the militants advanced on the southern city of Aden, the temporary capital of the country after their takeover of Sana’a.
Al Arabiya quoted Yemeni sources who accused the militiamen of citing ‘flimsy pretexts’ in order to derail the new round of talks.