Local Editor
An international human rights group said on Thursday that the Saudi-led coalition’s recent bombing of a packed funeral in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, constitutes an apparent war crime.
In a damning report, the Human Rights Watch said that a disproportionate number of the victims were civilians and that remnants of munitions found at the site of the attack showed that they were American made.
Coalition warplanes launched two air strikes Saturday on the funeral hall, killing nearly 140 people and wounding at least 600. The hall was hosting a funeral ceremony for the father of the interior minister.
An international investigation is needed into the "atrocity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for the rights group.
The Houthi Ansarullah revolutionary, allied with troops loyal to a former Yemeni president, took control of the capital in 2015 and forced out the Hadi regime.
The Saudi air campaign and ongoing ground fighting have left over 4000 civilians dead and more than 7000 wounded. The war has pushed Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation, to the brink of famine amid an imposition of a coalition blockade.
Since the beginning of the coalition’s aggression on Yemen, rights groups have documented coalition bombings that struck weddings, markets, schools, and hospitals. After the funeral hall bombing, coalition officials announced an internal investigation of the incident. The HRW statement, however, demands an independent international investigation.
The group also called for both the U.S. and U.K. to immediately suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The two countries have sold the kingdom billions of dollars in weapons. But in the wake of the funeral hall bombing, a U.S. official publicly warned that American support is "not a blank check."
Saudi Arabia began its deadly campaign against Yemen in late March 2015. The strikes were meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
About 10,000 people have been killed and over 16,000 injured since Riyadh launched the airstrikes. The Saudi aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
