UN probe reports possible war crimes in Yemen conflict
All sides in Yemen’s bloody conflict may have committed war crimes, UN investigators said Tuesday, highlighting deadly air strikes, rampant sexual violence, and the recruitment of young children as soldiers.
In their report, a team of UNmandated investigators said they had “reasonable grounds to believe that the parties to the armed conflict in Yemen have committed a substantial number of violations of international humanitarian law.”
Many of these violations may amount to “war crimes” the report said, adding that the investigators had identified a number of alleged perpetrators.
The devastating conflict in Yemen has left nearly 10,000 people dead since March 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition intervened to fight Huthi rebels closing in on the last bastion of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s government.
The conflict in what was already one of the world’s poorest countries has caused what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The UN’s so-called Group of Independent Eminent International and Regional Experts, which was created by the UN Human Rights Council last September, detailed a long line of abuses committed by all parties to the conflict.
“There is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimize civilian casualties,” said group chairman Kamel Jendoubi in a statement.
The report concluded that “coalition airstrikes have caused most of the documented civilian casualties,” pointing to a large number on residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention facilities, civilian boats and medical facilities.
“The specific cases investigated by the Group of Experts raise serious concerns about the targeting process applied by the coalition,” the report said, pointing out that in many cases there were no military targets in the vicinity of the attacks.
The report covers September 2014 through June 2018, and does not address the latest series of deadly strikes that have killed dozens of children in rebel-held areas and sparked international outrage.