A report published by a human rights organisation has documented the number of ‘unlawful’ airstrikes that have targeted Yemen since 2015. It also documents the number of civilian casualties as a consequence of these airstrikes.
World Report 2019 – Events of 2018, which was published by Human Rights Watch, claims that ’90 apparently unlawful coalition airstrikes’ have been documented between the years of 2015 and 2018. During this time span, a number of civilian locations have been targeted.
Some of the civilian locations that have been targeted include ‘homes, markets, hospitals, schools, and mosques’, states the Human Rights Watch report.
Human Rights Watch has also documented two key instances where the coalition strikes targeted innocent civilians. One airstrike hit a wedding ‘killing 22 people’ – and another airstrike hit a bus that killed ‘at least 26 children’.
The coalition which was responsible for these airstrikes comprises of nine states with Saudi Arabia taking a lead role in the military intervention in Yemen.
However, a large quantity of the weapons that the Saudi-led coalition forces use come from the USA and the UK. This is highlighted by the fact that Human Rights Watch ‘has identified remnants of US-origin munitions at the site of more than two dozen attacks’.
Similarly, Mark Curtis – a prominent historian and analyst – has also tweeted that the “UK is complicit” in the “Saudi airstrikes in Yemen” because of its material support of the forces. In the TV program shown below, Mr Curtis made the damning revelation that “the British are supplying the weapons, they’re supplying the aircraft, they’re training Saudi pilots”.
The effects of this war have been dire. ‘Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world’, according to Unicef. In fact, 80% of the population in Yemen is ‘in need of humanitarian assistance’.
Consequently, campaigners and activists have called on British and US authorities to stop arming the Saudi-led coalition forces because of the unlawful airstrikes and widespread human suffering.
