Yemen

Human Rights Watch calls for investigation into Saudi Arabia’s air attacks in Yemen

The Human rights organization Human Rights Watch accused the Arab military Alliance in Yemen, to destroy the economic infrastructure of the desperately poor country. It could be a war crime.

Saudi F-15 combat aircraft on the Basis of Khamis Mushait near the Yemeni border

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for an independent international investigation into the bombing of civilian economic targets in Yemen through the Saudi Arabia-led military Alliance. These air attacks were apparently all violations of international humanitarian law, according to a report by the human rights organization. Some of these attacks, it could be “war crimes”.

Saudi Coalition Airstrikes Target Civilian Factories in Yemen https://t.co/oqhutOhy61

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) 11. July 2016

The report lists 17 attacks on economic sites, including factories, warehouses, a farm and two power plants. HRW estimated that 130 civilians were killed. The organization demanded that Saudi Arabia’s membership in the UN human rights Council not to suspend, as long as the Kingdom to cease such attacks.

Chaotic Conditions

In Yemen, the troops of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to fight since September, 2014 against the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels and other groups who hold the former President Ali Abdallah Saleh, the Loyalty. Since March 2015, Riyadh-led Arab military Alliance air attacks flies on the rebels. According to the UN, have been killed in the conflict since the Saudi Intervention, more than 6400 people and 30,000 injured, many of them civilians. The Houthi rebels had captured at the beginning of last year, located in the North’s capital, Sanaa, and other cities and Hadi to flee to Saudi Arabia forced.

In Yemen’s South and Southeast are also jihadists of the organization “Islamic state” (IS) and the Al-Qaida network are active. In the power vacuum of the civil war country, the groups could expand their influence in the past few months. The end of April in Kuwait resumed peace talks for Yemen, under the mediation of the United Nations have Stalled.

The UN General Assembly in Saudi Arabia 2013, the 47 members elected on the count of UN human rights Council. Membership expires after three years, on 31. December. To the exclusion of the ultra-conservative Kingdom from the human rights Council would require a Two-thirds majority.

stu/rb (afp, ap)