In 29th May 2015, the Saudi led coalition aistrikes struck the outside wall of a private security camp in Hajjah city, damaging nearby houses, resulting in the death of at least 3 civilians including 1 child, and injuring at least 17 more civilians.
HRW reported:
"an airstrike on Hajja City, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Sanaa, on May 29, 2015, killed at least three civilians, including one child, and wounded at least 17 civilians. Human Rights Watch visited Hajja City and the site of the attack on July 24. At the site of the attack, it was evident that a bomb had struck right outside the wall of the Naman camp for private security personnel, which is located near the top of a high hill in the city. According to residents, the Houthis were apparently using the camp to store weapons. The blast had spewed rocks and pieces of concrete onto residential houses located on the steep hillside below the camp, significantly damaging at least five houses."
On 26th May 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a family home in the village of Dar Saber outside of Ta'iz city, killing 8 family members (6 of them children) and injuring 7 others (2 of them children).
This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
DAR SABER VILLAGE, TA’IZ, 26 MAY
Eight members of the Sayed family, six of them children, were killed and seven others, including two children, were injured when coalition forces bombed their home in Dar Saber village, outside Ta’iz city on 26 May at 5am.
One of the remaining residents and neighbours from the village, Ali Qaed al-Hakm, told Amnesty International:
“On that day, we were surprised to hear the plane loudly at 5am. There was an explosion and we felt an immense pressure, so we opened the windows. After that, my daughter and I headed to the kitchen and said ‘alhamdullilah’ [thanks be to God] and then we saw a second explosion that you could not imagine. The village was collapsing over our heads and all we tried to do was to find out the source of the explosion. But suddenly we heard a man screaming ‘Save us! Save us!’ and we found out that it was Khaled Sayed’s house that was struck. Everyone thought this village was safe before this incident, it was full of displaced people who had come here to escape the conflict in the city. But everyone left after this airstrike.”
It is unclear whether Khaled Sayed’s home was the intended target of the airstrike, According to neighbours he is not associated with the Huthis and he was in fact not at home at the time of the strike, but several members of his family, including his children were. Dar Saber village has a common trait with other airstrikes: it is close to a Huthi/Saleh-loyalist-controlled military camp which has been repeatedly targeted by coalition airstrikes. This was the first and only airstrike on the village of Dar Sabr, which encompasses a cluster of 80 houses. Khaled Sayed’s house is 150-200 meters south of Muntazah Zayed, a park which has been repeatedly targeted by airstrikes and which had been used by the anti-Huthi Popular Resistance Committees (PRCs) and then by the Huthis for a short time after. It appears possible that the intended target of this strike was the nearby military camp (further up the mountain, hundreds of meters away) but that coalition forces failed to take the necessary precautions to minimize potential harm to civilians in the area.
On 19th May 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes struck the Rahban residential area in Sadah
city
five times, killing one civilian and injuring 5 more.
These videos document the Saudi led coalition air strikes on Yemen. WARNING, they are EXTREMELY GRAPHIC and DISTRESSING. They are put here as evidence to support the call for an independent enquiry into war crimes and to call on the West to stop supplying arms to Saudi Arabia.
This is the Legal Center for Rights and Development's report for that day, including the airstrike on Rahban:
On the 12th May 2015, the Saudi led coalition bombed the historical town of Zabid in Hodeidah governorate of Yemen, which is listed by UNESCO as an 'outstanding archaeological and historical site' at risk. The Legal Center for Rights and Development list 60 dead (inc13 women and 8 children) and 155 injured as a result of the bombardment.
Sites damaged or destroyed included public buildings, a public highway, a busy market place, a sweet shop, restaurants, grocery stores and a residential area next to a historical mosque. The strike on the marketplace was documented as a double tap strike where jets returned to strike the rescuers.
This is HRW's report of the incident:
At about 4:15 p.m. on May 12, aircraft dropped at least five bombs on the Houthi-controlled town of Zabid, 96 kilometers (0.6 miles) south of the western port city of Hodaida, killing at least 60 civilians, including 13 women and eight children, and wounding at least 155.
Human Rights Watch examined the site on July 26. Three of the bombs had struck a three-story building in the middle of the Shagia market. The first bomb struck a sweets shop in the building. The second strike, which witnesses said took place about five minutes later, hit a restaurant on the building’s ground floor. The third struck the building’s second floor, causing the structure to collapse. The force of the blasts also destroyed two other buildings housing another restaurant and four grocery stores.
Abdu Ahmed Thayfi, 36, a qat seller at the Shagia market, was injured in the second strike:
"I heard the first strike, and then a few minutes later, the second. I felt as if everything was spinning around me, and then it went black. I woke up and saw the muscle of my left leg torn open. My right leg bone was snapped in half. My brother Muhammad suddenly appeared and wanted to take me to the hospital, but I refused to go, because I knew they would want to amputate my leg."
Thayfi ended up having a bone transplant in his left leg and avoided an amputation.
Abdullah Amin al-Dhabi, 34, a local freelance editor, told Human Rights Watch that after hearing the explosion, he rushed to the market to find his cousin, a qat seller there:
"I saw at least 50 limbs ripped apart from the fragments of the explosion. I also saw other bodies of people I could recognize in front of the Shagia restaurant. There I saw my cousin, next to the bodies of three other people I knew: two of them were kids under the age of 12, another was a woman who used to sell bread by the door of the restaurant. Days later, we heard that neighbors were still finding the hands and heads of other victims on their roofs and their shops. The whole area stank."
Dr. Faisal Awad, chairman of the Zabid Relief Society, which led efforts to identify the dead, told Human Rights Watch that the authorities gathered 66 unidentified body parts from the marketplace.
At the same time as the strikes hit Shagia market, two bombs fell on a lemon grove about 600 meters (656 yards) from the market, and about 50 meters (54 yards) from the entrance to the home of Ahmed Bagesh, the owner of one of the restaurants destroyed in the market attack, killing nine civilians, including two women and four children. Three witnesses said that one of the two bombs did not explode, and that Houthi fighters came soon after the incident and removed the munition.
Bagesh told Human Rights Watch:
"Just as I heard the strikes on the marketplace, there were also two strikes right outside our doorway. My sister’s husband had just left our house—he had been over for a visit—and when I ran out, I found the top half of his body lying on the path by the door. The bottom half had been blown about 10 meters away."
Thabit Hamdain, 55, a qat seller at the Shagia market, told Human Rights Watch that a large public-sector textile factory about one kilometer (0.6 miles) from the market had been producing military uniforms for the Houthis, and said he suspected this was the target of the airstrike. The factory was unaffected by the airstrikes and had not been subsequently targeted by the time Human Rights Watch visited Zabid on July 26.
Hamdain noted that the day before the airstrike he recognized three mid-level Houthi commanders eating lunch in one of the restaurants in the market. Bagash, the restaurant owner, said that Houthi fighters often came to the market to buy qat and to eat at the restaurants, but they did not “hang around.” He also said there were no Houthi checkpoints near the market.
The presence of small numbers of Houthi military personnel at the market would not make the entire market a legitimate target for a bombing attack. A factory producing uniforms or others goods for the military would be a valid military target, but the workers inside would not be considered civilians directly participating in the hostilities. The coalition should conduct an investigation to determine whether the attack was unlawfully indiscriminate, whether an attack on the factory during working hours was disproportionate, and whether all feasible precautions had been taken to minimize civilian casualties.
Location: Zabid Date: 5/12/2015
Name
Gender
Age
Killed/Wounded
Ahmed Sulaiman Olian
Male
over 18
Killed
Khalil Abdu Sulaiman al-Mizgagi
Male
35
Killed
Amar Muhammad Amin al-Ahdal
Male
over 18
Killed
Bunian Ahmad Sawlah
Female
over 18
Killed
Abd al-Aziz Salem Omar Orouq
Male
30
Killed
Thabit Ahmad Qaderi
Male
over 18
Killed
Ibrahim Ahmad Hiba Makbuli
Male
over 18
Killed
Abdu Ahmad Dar
Male
over 18
Killed
Abdu Yusif Taher Marzouqi
Male
over 18
Killed
Muhammad Dawud Hakim
Male
over 18
Killed
Muhammad Izzi Abdullah Rukbi
Male
over 18
Killed
Mansour Muhammad Abdullah Mawqri
Male
over 18
Killed
Noaman Hassan Ragab
Male
over 18
Killed
Ahmed Ali Muftah Askri
Male
over 18
Killed
Ahmad Muhammad Awad Makbuli
Male
over 18
Killed
Aiman Muhammad Hassan Rami
Male
over 18
Killed
Gumala Ayash Said Derein (Uzaiti)
Female
over 18
Killed
Hassan Yahya Ismail Murahal
Male
over 18
Killed
Faisal Muharam Salman al-Shamiri
Male
over 18
Killed
Muhammad Anwar Futaini Wisabi
Male
over 18
Killed
Murad Muhammad Adam Haddi
Male
over 18
Killed
Wafa Yahya Salem Mauda Kabah
Female
over 18
Killed
Abdullah Abd al-Aziz Salem Qirshi (Orouk)
Male
3
Killed
Abdullah Abdullah Ridwan
Male
over 18
Killed
Ismail Dawud Sulaiman al-Ahdal
Male
over 18
Killed
Akram Abd al-Hamid al-Qubati
Male
30
Killed
al-Raimi al-Shaibah
Male
over 18
Killed
Bashar Hawash Daoud al-Wisabi
Male
12
Killed
BashIr Ghalib Mahdi al-Shamiri
Male
22
Killed
Bayan Ahmad Sawlah
Female
over 18
Killed
Gawad Muhammad Qaid al-Wisabi
Male
over 18
Killed
Husam Saif al-Qubati
Male
over 18
Killed
Hamoudah Wajih
Female
over 18
Killed
Salah Yahya Muhammad Ali
Male
over 18
Killed
Abd al-Hakim Muhammad Abdullah Ghalib
Male
over 18
Killed
Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Adhim Dabwan
Male
over 18
Killed
Abd al-Latif Yahya Muhammad Qurashi (Orouk)
Male
15
Killed
Fatima Salem Omar Qurashi (Orouk)
Female
30
Killed
Muhammad Abd al-Aziz Salem Qurashi (Orouk)
Male
5
Killed
Murad Faisal Muhram Salman al-Shamiri
Male
over 18
Killed
Nagib Qaid Abdu Ghalib
Male
over 18
Killed
Neima Hassan Omar Kaboub
Female
40
Killed
Haifa Abd al-Aziz Salim Qurashi (Orouk)
Female
8
Killed
Hassan Ali Qasim Marwai
Male
over 18
Killed
Waila Kamela
Female
over 18
Killed
Muhammad Abd al-Aziz Salem
Male
9
Killed
Hayfa Abd al-Aziz Salem
Female
7
Killed
Abd al-Latif Orouq
Male
18
Killed
Abdullah Bin Abdullah al-Shamiri (Bagesh)
Male
40
Killed
Faisal Muharam
Male
45
Killed
Murad Faisal Muharam
Male
12
Killed
Numan Rajab al-Khalil
Male
over 18
Killed
1st daughter of Yahya Ahmad Sawlah
Female
over 18
Killed
2nd daughter of Yahya Ahmad Sawlah
Female
over 18
Killed
Daughter of Yahya Khabah
Female
over 18
Killed
Daughter of Ayash Aziz
Female
over 18
Killed
Ibrahim (Hibah)
Male
over 18
Killed
Salah al-Shamiri
Male
over 18
Killed
Hassan Murahal
Male
35
Killed
Daughter of al-Musyab
Female
18
Killed
Abd al-Majid Muhammad Abd al-Ghani
Male
15
Wounded
Qasim Ali Qasim Akil
Male
15
Wounded
Abdullah Ahmad Abdi
Male
13
Wounded
Abdullah Salim Dawud
Male
16
Wounded
Yahya Awad Yahya Murahal
Male
15
Wounded
Khawla Salim Ali Musaib
Female
10
Wounded
Ahmad Futaini Hawis
Male
10
Wounded
Ismail Abdullah Ismail Salami
Male
15
Wounded
Bassam Muhammad Abdullah Radman
Male
14
Wounded
Zyad Rabia Muafa Galal
Male
12
Wounded
Hisham Said Ahmad Hin
Male
16
Wounded
Muhammad Abdullah Mata
Male
12
Wounded
Muhammad Ammar al-Bahr
Male
13
Wounded
Murtadha Faris Hadadi
Male
9
Wounded
Qasim Ahmad Qasim Mahwat
Male
15
Wounded
Nasim Muhammad Saghyir Talha
Male
18
Wounded
Akram Wahb Allah Hafid
Male
15
Wounded
Haitham Wahb Allah Hafid
Male
16
Wounded
Othman Muhammad Adam Saigh
Male
15
Wounded
Muhammad Ahmad Sulaiman Olian
Male
8
Wounded
Murad Kadaf Sulaiman Ashiq
Male
6
Wounded
Abdullah Abd al-Wahab al-Ahdal
Male
15
Wounded
Adil Hatim Ali Garwan
Male
12
Wounded
Ahmad Abdullah Hilal
Male
43
Wounded
Muhammad Ahmad Numari
Male
22
Wounded
Muhammad Abdu Hamza
Male
19
Wounded
Adel Hatim Ali Garwan
Male
12
Wounded
Ridhwan Abdu Ahmad Mizgagi
Male
over 18
Wounded
Hamada Ismail Futaini Kushi
Male
22
Wounded
Walid Muhammad Ali Omar Ahiaf
Male
35
Wounded
Sami Ahmad Muhammad Sulaiman Quba
Male
30
Wounded
Muhammad Fawzi Khadim al-Okli
Male
25
Wounded
Hassan Omar Ayash
Male
45
Wounded
Isam Ahmad Bahkali
Male
36
Wounded
Abdullah Sulaiman Daoud al-Wisabi
Male
25
Wounded
Asim Abd al-Ghafar Abd al-Wahab al-Maghbashi
Male
27
Wounded
Abd Al-Rahman Muhammad Badr al-Hubaishi al-Shamiri
This is a brief translation of an Almasirah TV report (video below) at that time:
The Saudi-led coalition carried out 4 raids on a popular market in the Zabid, south of Al Hodeidah, which houses a large number of local restaurants, grocery stores, super markets and khat stalls. The bombardment showered the market and nearby houses with shells, turning the streets into pools of blood and human remains. 40 people are reported dead and 56 wounded with countless missing under the rubble.
An old man appears screaming: “They killed my son in the restaurant” and another lying in a stretcher weeping “they bombed us, old people and children, they hit twice, stopped, then they bombed us twice again. Aren’t we Muslim? Why are they killing us?”
WARNING: the media below is graphic and distressing.
It is put here as evidence of war crimes, to call on the UN for an
independent inquiry, and to call on Western governments to honour the
Arms Treaty and to stop the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
This is the report from the Legal Center for Rights and Development, listing names of the dead and injured and some testimonies of some of the witnesses:
On the 12th May 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a prison, the prison mosque and a nearby home, killing at least 25 civilian including 1 woman and 3 children, and injuring 18 more.
This HRW's report of the incident:
At about 3:15 p.m. on May 12, just before the afternoon prayer time, two bombs hit the Abs/Kholan Prison and other buildings in Abs, a town 150 kilometers (93 miles) north of the port city of Hodaida. Thirty-three men convicted of petty crimes were incarcerated there at the time. The strikes killed at least 25 civilians, including one woman and three children, and wounded at least 18 civilians.
Human Rights Watch examined the site on July 25. The bomb hit the prison’s mosque, at the corner of the prison compound, collapsing the structure. Ali Muhammad Hassan Mualim, 55, a local builder, told Human Rights Watch that he was chewing qat with friends at the time of the strike, in a building about 200 meters (219 yards) away and facing the prison:
"When I heard the explosion, I went out and ran toward the prison. I saw bodies, about 30 of them, some cut in half, some with severed limbs. Sometimes I get flashbacks to that day and I get sick—I start throwing up and get headaches."
Among those killed were 17 prisoners, a prison guard, and two people in a shop near the prison, according to a medic at the hospital in Abs.[68] Mualim said he also saw the body of a man who had been driving by the prison on his motorcycle at the time of the attack.
The second bomb struck minutes later, hitting the home of Omar Ali Farjain, about 50 meters (164 feet) from the prison, killing his wife and three of their children. The strike injured Farjain and his daughter, Maryam, 5, who was left with burns and metal fragments in her head. The blast ripped the façade off the building and incinerated the family’s car parked in front.
Muhammad Ahmed Yahya Wadar, a government soldier who lost his brother in the attack, arrived at the scene right after the bombing:
"I heard the bombing from home, and immediately came running to the prison. I saw torn bodies—legs and hands lying where the prison mosque used to be, including my brother Kamal’s. He was a guard at the prison. His son was wounded in the explosion as well."
Human Rights Watch has not been able to determine the intended target of the attack. Khalid Ali Farjain, the brother of Omar Farjain, said he had visited the prison every day since the war began to provide food to the inmates, and that he had never seen any military activity at the prison, such as weapons stored inside or nearby, or Houthi or allied military personnel.
One local resident said that a few dilapidated buildings near the prison belonged to the Yemeni military and had been used to house families of officers, but others denied this. Human Rights Watch discovered the chassis and parts of what appeared to be two military jeeps among the dilapidated buildings, but found no other signs that the area had been used for military purposes, or that people had recently lived in the buildings.
A National Security officer in Sanaa told Human Rights Watch that at the time of the strike, the Houthis had been holding several Saudi prisoners of war at the Abs/Kholan Prison. Human Rights Watch was unable to verify this information.
Since the beginning of the war, several airstrikes in other parts of Abs targeted the military airport, a military compound, and another building off the main road that residents said was being used for military purposes.
Ordinary prisons are civilian objects that may not be targeted unless they are being used for military purposes. Had the Houthis been using the prison to hold captured combatants, it would be a legitimate military objective, though any attack would need to be proportionate, not causing more civilian casualties than the anticipated military gain of the attack.
Location: Abs/Kholan Prison Date: 5/12/2015
Name
Gender
Age
Killed/Wounded
Suleiman Abdu Muhammad al-Haj
Male
18
Killed
Muhammad Ahmad Aqash
Male
18
Killed
Kamal Wadar
Male
over 18
Killed
Wife of Omar Farjain
Female
over 18
Killed
Abdullah Omar Ali Farjain
Male
8
Killed
Maria Abdullah
Female
2
Killed
Nassim
Female
3
Killed
Walid Abdu Muhammad
Male
20
Killed
Maryam Omar Ali Farjain
Female
5
Wounded
Omar Ali Farjain
Male
over 18
Wounded
Abdul Haddi Kamal Wadar
Male
under 18
Wounded
*The rest of the casualty list is on file at Abs Clinic
On 11th May 2015, Saudi led coalition airstrikes targeted a weapons cached in Mount Nuqum, resulting in deaths and injuries of nearby residents.
The following are excerpts from Amnesty International reports which includes interviews with witnesses from the incident:
Airstrikes on weapons depotsMany of the other civilian victims in the hospitals Amnesty International visited were injured by secondary explosions when attacks by Saudi Arabian-led coalition aircraft struck a weapons cache in the Mount Nuqum neighbourhood on 11 May.
Amnesty International interviewed four residents of Mount Nuqum who witnessed the attack and seven others who were injured in secondary explosions caused by the air strikes, including four children and two women. One of the women interviewed said that her son was killed in the same blast that had injured her. Around 40 people were killed in the strike according to the Ministry of Health, although Amnesty International could not independently verify this figure. Nearly 140 people injured in the attack were admitted for treatment at al-Thawra and Kuwait hospitals according to hospital staff and records.
Mount Nuqum, airstrike on weapons depot on 11 May 2015
Ahmad, a resident of Mount Nuqum present during the airstrike early in the evening on 11 May 2015, told Amnesty International that he heard four large explosions following aerial attacks. The airstrikes hit a weapons cache in the mountain which then set off a series of secondary explosions and projectiles. Ahmad said that the secondary projectiles continued to go off until 7am the next day. He said that anti-aircraft weapons that had been stored in the mountain were “dropping like rain” on the neighbourhood. Ahmad estimated that the weapons cache was about 200-250 meters away from the homes in the congested residential area.
One of the residents injured in the secondary blasts was Bassel, a 16-year-old resident of Mount Nuqum who was helping to evacuate women from the area after the strikes had started. He told Amnesty International:
“I was trying to evacuate women from the area just before the strike at 6:30pm. We were in front of the Ghamdan School with our relatives. There were no fighters there. People were running away. I was walking when I was hit. One guy came in a car and took me to the hospital. My mom was also hit with shrapnel.”
Bassel’s right leg was amputated below the knee as a result of his injury.
Amnesty International also met Firas, a four year old who was injured in his home near to Mount Nuqum on 11 May from a secondary explosion, and spoke to a relative who was with him at the hospital. Firas’ left hand and right leg had been injured by shrapnel. His mother, the relative told us, also had a fragmentation injury to her face.
Sanaa’s publicly-run Kuwait Hospital was one of several hospitals where staff said they had to send patients away, because essential equipment had become inoperable without electricity or fuel for generators.
I visited the hospital during a power outage. During the visit, an injured woman told me she had lost her adult son in an explosion in the Mount Nogum neighborhood of Sanaa on May 11. Shrapnel severed his head “like a sword,” she said. The blast had been triggered by an airstrike on a weapons storage facility in the neighborhood.
Sana'a
has repeatedly been hit by aerial bombing and other explosive weapon
attacks. Many strikes reportedly targeted military objectives such as
weapon stockpiles or checkpoints, but civilians have still been caught
up in the wide-area effects of the explosive weapons used. 'We have been
emphasizing the need to consider alternatives to explosive weapons with
wide-area effects when attacking military targets in populated areas,'
said Cedric Schweizer, the former head of the ICRC's delegation in
Yemen. 'In the case of the Sana'a munitions depot [an airstrike carried
out on 11 May], harm to the civilian population came not just from the
munitions that exploded but also from those that that did not, and lay
in the street where children could play with them.'
The following report by The Legal Center for Rights and Development states that 26 civilians were killed including 4 children and 8 women, plus hundreds more injured including 36 children and 16 women:
This is witness testimony that Jamila received from @__sabahi__ a resident in the area:
This photo was also sent by @__sabahi__who took the picture from a car whilst fleeing, near to Alsabeen Field at 7.02pm that evening:
