Individuals at the highest level from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the government of Yemen and Houthi rebels have committed violations of international law in Yemen that may amount to war crimes, UN experts have said.
A long-awaited catalogues abuses including rape, torture, disappearances and “deprivation of the right to life” during the three-year Yemeni conflict, in which Houthi rebels and their allies are fighting a Saudi-led coalition that backs the UN-recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
In a particularly damning section of the report, the three experts said the Saudi-led coalition routinely failed to consult its own “no-strike list” of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. They also said the Saudi air force had failed to cooperate with them about its targeting process.
“Despite the severity of the situation we continue to see a complete disregard for the people in Yemen,” said Charles Garraway, one of the authors of the report and a former legal officer to the British army.
The 41-page report, based on visits to many parts of Yemen, said coalition airstrikes had caused most of the documented civilian casualties, with residential areas, marketplaces, funerals, weddings, detention centres, religious sites and medical facilities hit.
“There is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimise civilian casualties, the group’s chair, Kamel Jendoubi, said in a statement. “I call on them to prioritise human dignity in this forgotten conflict.”
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