Local Editor
A prominent Yemeni rights group says it has documented heavy damage to at least 34 archaeological sites from the fighting and airstrikes over the past four years in the war-torn country.
The group is urging the international community to protect the Yemenis’ “collective memory.”
The Mawatana Organization for Human Rights says in a lengthy report entitled “The Degradation of History” and released on Thursday that it collected testimonies from over 75 people working at the archaeological sites and monuments that came under attack since mid-2014.
Saudi Arabia launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power.
The aggression initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen.
According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi war has claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis so far.
The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories.
The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.
More than three and a half years into that war, Saudi Arabia has achieved neither of its objectives. This is while it had declared at the start of the invasion that the war would take no more than a couple of weeks.
Since the onset of that war, Riyadh has been accused of using banned chemical weapons against the Yemeni soldiers defending their country against the Saudi-led aggression, with reports of using US-supplied white phosphorus munitions that can maim and kill by burning to the bone.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
