Credit: Wikipedia / Aerial bombardments on Sana’a, Yemen from Saudi Arabia

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED NATIONS  –  The United States, Britain, and France could be held responsible for human rights violations in Yemen in arming and providing logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition that is waging a proxy war there,  a group of UN experts said in a report released this week.    The United Nations  condemned  the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes conducted Sunday in  Yemen on a detention center  that killed more than 100 people.  According to the International Committee of the Red Cross ( ICRC) , which rushed to the scene with medical teams and body bags,  every detainee in the building was killed or injured when the building  was leveled.  The UN report on Yemen released Tuesday details “a host of possible war crimes committed by various parties to the conflict over the past five years, including through airstrikes, indiscriminate shelling, snipers, landmines, as well as arbitrary killings and detention, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and the impeding of access to humanitarian aid in the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” 

“Five years into the conflict, violations against Yemeni civilians continue unabated, with total disregard for the plight of the people and a lack of international action to hold parties to the conflict accountable. The international community must multiply its efforts to free the Yemeni people from the persistent injustice they have been enduring.”

-said  Kamel Jendoubi, chairperson of the Group of Experts on Yemen.

The Group of Experts has identified, where possible, individuals who may be responsible for international crimes, and an updated confidential list of individuals has been submitted to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Where identification of individuals was not possible, the Experts have identified the group responsible

Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with nearly 80 per cent of the total population, some 24.1 million people, requiring some form of humanitarian assistance and protection, according to the  UN. 

Saudi-led intervention in Yemen ,also called the Arab coalition,  is a military intervention that was launched by Saudi Arabia in 2015, leading a coalition of nine countries from the Middle East and Africa, in response to calls from the internationally recognized pro-Saudi president of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after he was ousted by the Houthi movement due to economic and political grievances, and fled to Saudi Arabia.

UK and the US support Saudi-Led Coalition Through Arms Sales and Technical Assistance

Rights groups have criticized the the UK and the US  for supplying arms, and accuse the coalition of using cluster munitions, which are banned in most countries. Amnesty International urged the US and the UK to stop supplying arms to Saudi Arabia and to the Saudi-led coalition.