Local Editor
The United Arab Emirates should clarify its role in the apparent Saudi-led coalition attack on a boat carrying Somali civilians off the western coast of Yemen, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the country’s prime minister and defense minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. The letter also calls on the UAE to provide information on the role of its forces in other unlawful coalition attacks, and endorse an impartial, international inquiry into laws-of-war violations by all parties to the conflict in Yemen.
On March 16, 2017, a helicopter attacked a boat carrying 145 Somali migrants and refugees near the port of Hodeida, killing at least 33 people and wounding another 29. Ten remain missing. The coalition is the only known force operating military aircraft in the area.
According to HRW a deliberate or reckless attack on civilians is a war crime. Under the laws of war, the UAE is obligated to investigate alleged serious laws-of-war violations and take appropriate action.
“Desperate Somalis fleeing Yemen’s conflict became the targets of the very violence they were trying to escape,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The UAE has been a major player in the Saudi-led coalition yet appears to have done nothing to address the role its forces played in scores of unlawful airstrikes carried out over the past two years.”
The Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Yemen since March 2015. Its military strikes have claimed the lives of over 12,000 people while its air and naval blockade paved the way for famine in the country.
“The concerns expressed by the UAE armed forces for the attack on the refugee boat should be promptly translated into action,” Whitson said. “The UAE should be pressing other coalition members to accept an impartial, international investigation into this and other allegedly unlawful attacks by all sides in the Yemeni conflict.”
Source: HRW, Edited by Website Team
