Shiite rebels hold their weapons as they chant slogans during a rally to mark Al-Quds (Jerusalem) day in Sanaa, earlier this month
The Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels has caused extensive damage to the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country’s economic infrastructure in the year-long air campaign, an international rights group said yesterday.
Human Rights Watch said the coalition airstrikes have hit factories, warehouses, and power stations. In a new report, HRW documented airstrikes on 13 key facilities in Yemen since the beginning of the Saudi-led campaign in March 2015, until February.
The New York-based watchdog said those airstrikes killed a total of 30 civilians and left hundreds of Yemenis unemployed. The facilities that were hit had produced, stored, and distributed food, medicine, and electricity.
HRW said that “taken together, the attacks on factories and other civilian economic structures raise serious concerns that the Saudi-led coalition has deliberately sought to inflict widespread damage to Yemen’s production capacity.”
Yemen is in the grip of a civil war pitting government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition against the country’s Shiite rebels known as Houthis and army units loyal to a former president. The conflict has killed an estimated 9,000 people and pushed the Arab world’s poorest country to the brink of famine. It created deep political and security vacuum that enabled Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and an upstart Islamic State affiliate to seize large swaths of land and carry out large-scale attacks.
U.N.-mediated peace talks hosted by Kuwait between Yemen’s warring sides almost collapsed last month after weeks of failed negotiations while a cease-fire declared by the United Nations since April 10 remains shaky, with both sides reporting numerous breaches.
Saudi Arabia, which perceives Yemen to the south as its backyard, accuses the Houthis of acting as Iranian proxy. The rebels accuse the Saudis of using Yemen as a stage for settling its scores with the Shiite power Iran, Saudi Arabia’s rival.
Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-
Asiri, the coalition spokesman, has claimed international rights groups and U.N. agencies are issuing misleading reports and depending on the Houthis as the primary source of information. Al-Asiri could not immediately be reached for a comment on the HRW report.
HRW said its report was based on interviews with 37 witnesses in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and the city of Hodeida, as well as studies of remnants of munitions found on the site of the bombed facilities. It also said that in at least six of the sites, munitions were produced or supplied by the United States and Great Britain. Ahmed Al-Haj, Sanaa, AP
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