Local Editor
Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the US government credibly investigate the raid on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in central Yemen in late January 2017, that killed at least 14 civilians, including nine children, adding that it should make its findings public.
“The US needs to go a step further and provide a full accounting of possible laws-of-war violations and deliver appropriate compensation to civilians.,” Nadim Houry, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch, said.
On January 29, 2017, US special forces were inserted by aircraft and conducted a raid in al-Ghyeel, a small village in the Yakla area of the central Yemeni governorate of al-Bayda, about 145 kilometers from Aden, Yemen’s southern port city. The raid, the first of its kind by US forces in Yemen in over two years, was aimed at “intelligence-gathering,” the US military said.
Human Rights Watch collected 23 names and ages of villagers killed in the raid. A witness said that two other people died but he could not remember their names. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which worked with a Yemeni journalist who visited the Yakla area less than a week after the raid, collected 25 names and ages of those who died from Yakla’s residents, which matched the names HRW collected.
“As the civilian toll of the al-Bayda raid comes to light, it is increasingly clear that a thorough investigation is needed so that measures can be adopted to avoid such civilian losses in the future,” Houry said. “If the US can’t do that impartially and transparently, they should ensure that an independent inquiry can be carried out.”
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
