UN: At Least 2,355 ’Civilians’ Killed in Yemen Conflict
Local Editor
The office of the UN human rights chief said that 151 civilians have been killed in fighting in Yemen over two weeks in September, taking the civilian death toll to 2,355 over the last six months.
The office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ spokesman, Rupert Colville, pointed to Saudi-led coalition airstrikes and "indiscriminate" shelling in residential areas.
OHCHR wants the coalition and Yemen’s government to allow "independent and impartial" investigations in Yemen.
The agency’s latest count, which dates to Sept. 24, does not include casualties from the recent Saudi-led air strike of a wedding party in Taiz on Monday that UN officials say might have killed 131 people or more.
The Saudi-led missiles reportedly hit two tents in a village near the Red Sea port of Mocha where a wedding celebration was underway.
Witnesses spoke of having seen mutilated bodies sprawled on the ground after the attack. Many of the dead appear to have been women and children.
Yet, the Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing in Yemen for six months denied responsibility for the attack.
The incident comes just a day after Saudi-led coalition helicopters reportedly killed 25 other ’civilians’ in a northern Yemeni village.
A Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out a military aggression on Yemen by launching airstrikes against the country since March 26. The airstrikes have not been authorized by the United Nations [UN].
