A UN report on human rights abuses related to foreign intervention in Yemen details the extensive civilian casualties inflicted by the US-backed Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes.
The United Nations panel examined 10 airstrikes in 2017 that killed 157 people, and found that the targets included a migrant boat, a night market, five residential buildings, a motel, a vehicle and government forces, according to a copy of the report shown to Al Jazeera.
The panel said it requested information from the Saudi-led coalition for the rationale behind such strikes, but did not receive a response. The strikes were carried out by precision-guided munitions, so it is likely these were the intended targets, the report points out.
“Even if in some cases, the Saudi-led coalition had targeted legitimate military objectives, the panel finds it highly unlikely that the IHL [International Humanitarian Law] principles of proportionality, and precautions in attack were met,” the report stated.
The report also cited a “widespread and systematic” pattern of “arbitrary arrests, deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearances”. It was particularly scathing about UAE camps, where it says torture has been taking place.
The panel, which investigated the cases of 12 inmates, referenced beatings, electrocution, constrained suspension, use of “the cage”—confinement in a cage in the sunlight—and denial of medical treatment.
Proxy forces funded and armed by the coalition “pose a threat to peace, security and stability of Yemen”, the panel said, and “will do more to further the fragility of Yemen than they will do to hold the state together”.
The report also said that southern secession in Yemen has become a genuine possibility, due in part to the length of the war, the lack of military progress and divisions that have emerged in the country.
