On 30th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes struck a residential home two times in the Al-Hawban area of east of Taiz, killing a married couple and their two daughters aged 2 and 5. Their two young sons survived since they were play at a relatives' house at that time. This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
TA’IZ CITY, 30 JUNE
In the city of Ta’iz, on 30 June, coalition forces launched two airstrikes against the home of Fahmi Qa’id al-Najdan, a 39-year property dealer, killing him, his wife Khulud, 35, and their two daughters Rinad and Malak, aged two and five. The couple’s two young boys survived because they had gone to play at a relatives’ house nearby.
Fahmi’s brother told Amnesty International:
“The house was bombed twice, about 20 minutes apart, at about 1 -1.15pm. The house was destroyed, leaving no chance of survival for anyone in the house. Some people say that the Saudis said in the media that there was an arms cache in the house and others say that 30 Huthis were killed in the house. None of this is true. They killed a father, a mother and their two little girls. Anyone who wants can dig in the ruins of the house to check if there are weapons or Huthis. Only God knows why they bombed this home. May God do justice”.
The house, a large and solid structure, collapsed onto itself. It is not possible to fully assess what lies under the debris, but no evidence is visible that the house contained a weapon store or that combatants had been at the house. There were also no remains of weapons in the rubble, no signs of secondary explosions, no information that bodies were recovered other than the four family members, putting into question the justification and legality of the strike.
On 18th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a truck driving from Lahj into Aden killing two civilian men and injuring one other. This is journalist Iona Craig's report of the incident:
Shukri Ali Saeed lies in the hospital two months
after an airstrike hit the truck he was driving in Lahj, Yemen, on June
18, killing two passengers. Saeed suffered severe burns and both his
legs were broken. Photo: Iona Craig
'Shukri Ali Saeed said he was driving his flatbed truck from Lahj into Aden on June 18, the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, when it was hit by an airstrike. Two men sitting alongside him were killed. With both his legs broken and suffering from third degree burns, Saeed dragged himself out of the upturned truck. He lay on the side of the road for more than two hours before someone came to help him. Two months later Saeed is still in the hospital. At night the sound of the incoming missile haunts him when he tries to sleep. “I can’t blame the Houthis,” said Saeed from his hospital bed. “It’s clear who is responsible.”'
On 17th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition air strikes hit a house in Ghomar village in Razih directorate in the region of Sadah, Yemen. It was the house of Abdulrahman Abdullah Mohsen who survived, but thirteen people from his family were killed including his wife, his three children, his mother and his brother's family as well. In the video he shows what used to be his rooms and explains how many people were in each room at the time of the strike.
Warning: This video is graphic and distressing. It is put here as evidence to call for a UN investigation and to call on Western governments to respect the Arms Treaty by stopping the transfer of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
On the 16th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes bombed 2 vehicles killing 11 civilians including a woman, and injuring 6 including 2 women and a child, on the road that goes through Khabt Al-Rejaa in Tor Al-Baha district in Lahj, Yemen.
On 16th June, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit the neighbourhood of Hawban, east of Taiz city, Yemen, killing a 48 year old mother and her four children (ages 10, 14, 23 and 25). This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
AL-MUJALIYYA NEIGHBOURHOOD, TA’IZ, 16 JUNE
48-year old Jamila and four of her children were killed when an airstrike destroyed their home in al-Mujaliyya neighbourhood at 3.45am on 16 June. Jamila’s daughter Leila Hayel, who lives 600 metres away from her parents’ house, lost her mother and siblings Suha (10), Amal (14), Samah (23), and Hani (25). She told Amnesty International:
“The whole family had been staying in the Hawban neighbourhood [east side of Ta’iz city] for the last two months because of the continuous fighting [between armed groups] in al-Mujaliyya [south side of Ta’iz city]. In fact, the majority of the residents have left the neighbourhood. They had only returned home one week before the strike, in time for Ramadan. On that night, a bomb struck al-Arwa school, located 30 metres away from our house. Fearing for their lives, my family rushed to leave the house after the explosion. While my sisters and mother were putting on their abayas and my brother Hani was locking up the house, a bomb struck the house. The force of the explosion sent my sisters and mother flying five metres, killing them instantly. Hani’s body was not dug out until 12 hours later. My father Faisal (60) was the only survivor.”
On that night, three airstrikes targeted al-Mujaliyya neighbourhood for the first time, minutes apart. The first targeted al-Arwa School, which was reportedly being used as a detention centre by the Huthi/Saleh loyalists. The second struck the Hayel home and the third landed in the courtyard of the al-Ahdal family, where 13 relatives (10 women, three men) were sheltering in the basement of the house after hearing the first two strikes. The bomb at al-Ahdal house, only a couple of doors down from the Hayel family, failed to detonate, limiting what could have been even greater destruction and likely more civilian casualties.
On 13th June 2015, Saudi led coalition airstrikes targeted a home in al-Safra, south-east of Sa'da city, killing 10 civilians (8 children and 2 women) and injuring 7 more (4 children, 2 women, 1 man).
This is Amnesty International's report of what happened:
DAMMAJ VALLEY, AL-SAFRA, SA’DA, 13 JUNE
On 13 June, coalition forces killed eight children and two women from the al-Sailami family and injured seven other relatives, four children, two women and a man, when they bombed their home in al-Safra, a village south-east of Sa’da city at around 12.30pm.
At the ruins of the house, on the northern edge of the village, Abdullah Ahmed Yahya al-Sailami, whose one-year-old son was killed in the strike, told Amnesty International that he was praying at the nearby mosque with the other men from the family when he heard the bombing and ran back to find a scene of indescribable horror:
“We [the men] were at the mosque at noon prayers, 20 meters from the house. There were 19 people in the house when it was bombed. All but one were women who were not associated with the fighting and children. The children who would usually be playing outside during the day were in the house, because it was lunchtime. They were all killed or injured. One of the dead was a 12-day-old baby, Abdelhakim, and his mother Wafaa, 17. Then we found Sefiya’s body at the entrance of the house, where she was sitting with her two children, three-year-old Youssef and 18-month-old Zahra. All three were killed. It took us three days to dig out their body parts. Youssef was torn to shreds.”
Mohammed, another relative who took part in the rescue after the airstrike, told Amnesty International:
“‘Aqil still had his dummy [pacifier] in his mouth when we pulled him out of the rubble, dead. He was only one year old. That day was his first birthday. Mohammed was 14 months; we found him and his sister Mariam, six, dead in the rubble. When we dug Baraa’, and her sister Juhaina out of the rubble, Juhaina was still alive but she died a few days later, on the first day of Ramadan. She was seven, and Baraa’ was four. The youngest survivor is Abdelmalik, who is only six months old. We found him in the arms of his grandmother Aisha; she folded her body over his and protected him. He was unharmed. She was also injured but thankfully survived. Why on earth did the Saudis bomb our home? This is a farm, we are civilians. There were only women and children. My cousin Ahmad was the only man in the house. He wasn’t feeling well so he did not come to the mosque, but was praying in his room when the house was bombed. When we pulled him from the rubble, injured, he was still praying.”
Amnesty International visited the site three weeks after the airstrike and found at the ruins of the house many items that would normally be found in a civilian house – children’s toys, books, clothes, cooking utensils and furniture. No sign of weapons or other military ware were found in or around the house. Amnesty International did not find any information to suggest that the male residents, who were all, except one, not in the house at the time of the strike, were fighters. At best, this attack demonstrates reckless disregard for the lives of civilians. If the attackers had information that fighters were present, they had a duty to take steps to verify their presence and to ascertain who else was in the house. If necessary precautions had been taken the attack would have been cancelled due to the fact that only civilians were present.
On 13th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit the Yesnem local market in Baqim directorate in the governorate of Saadah. The initial casualty count at the time of the report was 10 killed and at least 19 injuured. Friday is a particularly busy day at market places in Yemen since people tend to do their shopping before and after their Friday prayers at the mosque.
This is a brief translation of the main points in the following video report:
Friday, a weekly holiday when people do their errands, and a Muslim holy day of worship. In the early morning hours, the Saudi-led coalition bombarded the Yasnem local market, at Baqim Directorate,in the Governorate of Saada, when it was busy with both shoppers and worshipers. The raid killed 10 and injured 19, though this is only the initial estimate of casualties. There were three strikes. The first two strikes were consecutive and then there was a pause. After about 15 minutes, as people emerged to assist survivors, a third strike came unexpectedly, hitting both the initial victims and their would-be rescuers. Shops and cars were destroyed as well. There are still families searching in despair for their missing loved ones among the chaos of dismembered bodies.
On 13th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a residential area killing 10 civilians including 3 children and 5 women, and injuring 28 more, including 11 children and 10 women.
This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
A triple strike launched by the coalition against Beit Me’yad, a residential suburb of the capital Sana’a, on 13 June killed 10 civilians – including three children and five women, and injured 28, including 11 children and 10 women – who lived near the intended targets of the strikes.
In one of these strikes a 2,000 lb (900 kg) bomb killed an 11-year-old boy, two of his sisters, his brother, and his 10-year-old cousin, and injured five other members of the al-‘Amiri family. The bomb, identified from the markings on fragments found at the site by Amnesty International, pulverized the house of Yahya Mohamed ‘Abdullah Saleh, a nephew of the former President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh who has been living abroad for years, and caused extensive damage to the surrounding houses.
Most of the neighbours had fled minutes before the strike – the third in the neighbourhood in less than 10 minutes – but the al-‘Amiri family did not manage to escape on time. “We did not move fast enough,” Mohamed al-‘Amiri, who lost four of his children in the strike, told Amnesty International.
A double strike launched minutes earlier a few streets away destroyed the home of the al-Akwa family, killing 40-year-old Fatma, her two children Malek and Reem, and two of her relatives, and injuring 18 other family members and five neighbours.
Amnesty International spoke to a 12-year-old girl who suffered third-degree burns and shrapnel wounds all over her body as well as a deep cut across her face. She writhed in pain on her hospital bed as she told Amnesty International: “We were all in one room, my mum and my siblings, and the explosion happened and were all hurt. Now my mum, little brother and sister are in another hospital.” Hospital staff told Amnesty International that in fact the child’s family were killed in the strike and they would tell her imminently.
The strike missed its apparent target – Tareq Mohamed ‘Abdullah Saleh, another nephew of the former President, who owns but does not live in a nearby house which was bombed later that night. Media reports citing the Saudi-based Yemeni government’s statement that the strike had targeted and killed Tareq Mohamed ‘Abdullah Saleh turned out to be unfounded.
Beit-Me’yad (Sana’a governorate), 13 June 2015
The Saudi Arabian-led coalition bombed several houses belonging to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and some of his relatives, killing and injuring other relatives and neighbours – at times striking the intended target and at times missing the apparent intended target and striking civilians instead. A series of strikes which targeted the houses of two of the former President’s nephews on 13 June killed 10 civilians (four children, five women, and one man) and injured 28 others (11 children, 10 women, seven men) in nearby houses.
The strike which destroyed the house of Yahya Mohamed ‘Abdullah Saleh, the former President’s nephew and a former commander of the Central Security Forces (who has been outside the country for years), killed five neighbours from the al-‘Amiri family and injured five others. Two other strikes apparently aimed at his brother Tareq Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, a former commander of the Presidential Guard, missed the intended target and struck the nearby house of Tareq’s estranged relatives and other neighbours, killing five and injuring 23. Tareq’s house was struck later that night.
The first and second airstrikes hit the house of the al-Akwa family, where 23 relatives were present at the time. Hareth al-Akwa, who lost his wife Fatma (35), his daughter Reem (18) and his son Malek (8), spoke to Amnesty International about the incident:
“The whole family had relocated to Hodeidah for a whole month and we had only returned home two days before the strike, in time for Ramadan. The first airstrike killed, the second one burned. My little boy Malek, he was an angel. My daughter Hala (four) was thrown from the first floor by the force of the explosion. Luckily she fell into her grandmother’s arms downstairs. They [the coalition] said that the airstrike killed Tareq Mohamed Abdullah Saleh, my nephew, but it’s not true. In fact, Tareq came to pay his condolences. We had had no contact with him in years. We are only related through marriage. My two sisters married the brothers of [former President] Ali Abdullah Saleh. His house has been empty since the start of the airstrikes.”
‘Abdullah Mohamed al-Akwa, 24, who lost his wife Ibtihal (20) and his father Mohamed (45), told Amnesty International:
“I was on the roof turning off the generator when the first rocket struck. The explosion sent me flying onto the neighbour’s roof, around 20 metres away. My wife Ibtihal was killed while she was sleeping in our room. We had only been married for five months.”
Five neighbours from the Mahyoub family, a 52-year-old woman and four of her children, were also injured in the strike. Thyazin Mahyoub told Amnesty International:
“We were six people at home: my mother, my four siblings and I. The rocket first struck our house, destroying the third floor where the kitchen was, and then it struck the al-Akwa’s house next door. My mother, Maryam, lost her right arm and my brothers and sisters were all injured by shrapnel. I was at the far end of the house and did not suffer any injuries.”
Mohamed al-‘Amiri, who lost four children and his nephew, told Amnesty International: “We heard the first explosion at midnight, we all went to the living room. We did not move fast enough, the strike [in front of our house] came five to eight minutes later – around 12:10AM. We were 13 family members in the house. I heard my daughter Aysha screaming from her room. She was killed … Yahya Mohamed Abdullah Saleh has not lived in his house since 2011.”
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition has provided no evidence that any of the targeted houses contained legitimate military objectives, such as arm caches or command and control centres, and Amnesty International has found no evidence to that effect. The fact that two of the houses belong to relatives of former president Saleh, who previously held high-ranking military positions and who may now to be allied with the Huthis, does not make their houses military objectives.
Warning: the following videos of this incident are graphic and distressing.
They are placed here as evidence to call on the UN to launch and
independent inquiry and to call upon Western governments to honour the
arms treaty by stopping the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
Early morning of 12th June 2015, Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a 2500 year old protected UNESCO heritage site, residential homes in the Al Qasimi area of Old Sana in Yemen, killing at least 5 civilians including one woman and one child.
This is Amnesty International's report:
On 12 June, five members of the ‘Abdelqader family were killed in another bombardment which destroyed four adjacent houses in the Old City in Sana’a. The strike would have likely caused many more casualties had many of the neighbours not left the area after a powerful airstrike targeted the nearby Defence Ministry compound (200 metres to the south) two days earlier.
The Saudi Arabia-led coalition spokesman Brigadier-General Ahmed al-‘Assiri denied responsibility for the strike but a fragment of the bomb recovered from the rubble of the houses shows that it comes from a 2,000 lb (900 kg) bomb, the same type which has been widely used by the coalition in various parts of Yemen.
The Old City, Sana’a (Sana’a governorate), 12 June 2015
A coalition strike in the Old City of Sana’a destroyed four adjacent houses on 12 June at 2AM killing the five members of the Abdelqader family who were inside: Hassan Yahya Abdelqader, his wife Ummat al-Malik, his brother Rashad and son Abdullah and his cousin Shawqi. Hassan’s brother, Mohamed, who lives nearby, told Amnesty International:
“We heard a plane flying over us at around 1:50AM. So my family and I hid under the staircase, the safest place in the house. At 2AM we heard an explosion. A few minutes later Shawqi’s mother called me and asked me to go to check on him. He had called her from under the rubble asking for help ... I ran over there. With the neighbours we started to dig through the rubble with our hands. Shawqi was dead when he was pulled out of the rubble at 5AM. He was married with five-year-old twins and his wife is six months pregnant. Thirteen people live in the houses, most of them women and children, but they had left two days earlier, after another airstrike hit the Defence Military Compound [200 metres to the south].” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/yemen-airstrike-analysis-shows-saudi-arabia-killed-scores-of-civilians/
This is Mwatana's report of the incident (listed as 13 June but other sources including Tweets at the time state this happened early morning on 12th June):
On the 11th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit farmers attending their fields in the Shatt al Nofaan area of Haydan district in Yemen, 80 kms west of Saada city. 3 farmers were killed
On 8th June 2015, a Saudi led coalition struck a farm sending 22 family members flying dozens of meters away, killing 2 pregnant women and 3 children and injuring 2 children and an elderly man, all from the same family. This is Amnesty International's report of the incident: BENI MA’ATH, SABR, SAHAR, SA’DA, 8 JUNE On the morning of 8 June, a coalition forces airstrike on a farm in Beni Ma’ath, a rural area north-west of Sa’da city, killed three children and two pregnant women, as well as injuring two children and a 61-year-old man from the Halhal family.
The strikes created a 10-meter wide crater, where Amnesty International found remnants of a US-designed Mark (MK) 80 series general purpose bomb.Survivors told Amnesty International that three consecutive airstrikes hit the farm, sending some of the 22 family members flying dozens of meters away. They said that they did not find the body of one of the children killed in the strike until four days later. Amnesty International found no evidence of military activities around the house, where the family’s meagre possessions were strewn dozens of meters from the ruins of the house.
Ammar Mohammed Halhal, a 28-year-old farmer and father of four who survived the attack, but lost his pregnant wife and his daughter, told Amnesty International:
“I don’t know why they bombed us. We are just simple farmers, we grow qat and vegetables. We are poor and spend our time working to eke a living for our families. They killed us for no reason. My wife, Nabila Ali and my little girl Fatime, my brothers Saqar and Abdullatif, who are both two years old, and my stepmother Safia Ghaleb were all killed. My wife and my stepmother were both in the last month of their pregnancies. My father and my little brother and sister, both three years old, were injured. The bombs were so powerful that we were blown far from the house. It took four days to find the body of little Abdullatif; he had been blown more than 50 meters away”.
Ammar Mohammed Halhal’s father, Mohammed, who sustained multiple injuries to his back, neck and arms, said:
“The explosion sent me flying all the way to that tree, some 30 meters from the house”.
The following daily report from the Legal Center for Rights and Development also lists this incident 'The warplanes bombed Saber vale in Sehar district and killed 6 civilians from one family' as well as many others that occured on the same day.
On the 7th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes targeted the Headquarters of Public Leadership in Sanaa which, was located in a densely populated area. The airstrikes destroyed nearby houses and shops. It is reported that those who went to help with rescue efforts were then targeted with further raids as there were 6 raids in total. The Legal Center for Rights and Development based in Sanaa reported 53 civilians killed and 210 others injured. Warning: the following videos are verygraphic and distressing. They are placed here as evidence to call on the UN to launch and independent inquiry and to call upon Western governments to honour the arms treaty by stopping the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The following video shows human remains that were collected in plastic bags from the streets and roof tops.
On 6th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a bus on in the district of Dar Saad in Aden, killing at least 16 civilians. This is reporter Iona Craig's account of what happened:
"On June 12, six days after an airstrike split a large public transport bus in two on the edge of Aden’s Dar Saad district, Lami Yousef Ali, 23, found the decomposing body of his 28-year-old brother, Abdu, still entangled in the wreckage. Lami and Abdu had been chatting via WhatsApp moments before the bus was bombed, and their father, Yusef Ali, also died in the strike, which killed at least 16 civilians. According to witnesses, this bombing also hit two cars carrying Houthi fighters. (This is the only case of the eight strikes investigated in which Houthi fighters appear to have been the target rather than civilians.) Although no remnants of the cars are visible at the strike site, the twisted metal of the bisected bus still lies in the sand, rusting in the scorching heat of Aden’s summer sun. In the background the familiar sound of distant bombings resonates from the shifting front lines as the battle moves on."
The following daily report by the Legal Center for Rights and Development mentions the strike on the bus, stating 14 civilians were killed as well as many other incidents that day. (Note that it is listed as Lahj district in the report below, since the incident happened on the edge of Lahj/Aden districts).
Around 4th June 2015 a Saudi coalition airstrike hit a car killing all but one of a family trying to flee to safety. The dead included a man and wife, their mother and their three children. The sole survivor of the family was a baby boy age just 13 days old. This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
ATTACK ON VEHICLE, SA’DA CITY, SA’DA, EARLY JUNE
Some victims were killed as they were trying to flee to safety. Abdullah al-Lamood Abdullah told Amnesty International that six members of his family were killed when the car they were travelling in was struck by coalition forces around 4 June in the middle of the day.
The car was by the petrol station near the political security building on the Gharaz Road, next to the specialized hospital, when a first airstrike hit the station. A second airstrike subsequently hit the car, inside which were Hassan Hussein al-Lamood, 31, his mother Aziza, 50, his wife and their four young children. All were killed except Hussein’s youngest child, a 13-day-old boy.
Abdullah told researchers that later that evening he heard on television that coalition forces announced the killing of a Huthi leader. He believed from the description that they were referring to his brother Hassan. However, he maintained that his brother Hassan was neither a leader nor a member of the Huthis.
“He was just an ordinary family man who worked in a money change office. They were in the Muwasalat area and when the petrol station there was bombed they escaped and headed to Gharaz, to my sister. They were on the way there when their car was bombed”.
It is not clear if the target of the strike was the vehicle in which the al-Lamood family was travelling, the petrol station, the political security building or another target nearby. The vehicle and the civilians in it should not have been targeted. The petrol station also is a civilian object and should not have been directly attacked as such. As part of their obligation to take necessary precautions, those planning an attack on a legitimate target in the immediate vicinity should have been aware of and taken into consideration the danger of striking a petrol station, which was likely to cause a secondary explosion and fire thereby putting civilians in the area at risk. They would have had an obligation to consider other less risky targets.
On 4th June 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a small cluster of houses, in al-Maghsal area, four times, killing 8 children, 3 women and 70 animals.
WARNING: the media below is graphic and distressing.
It is placed here as evidence as war crimes to call for an independent
investigation and to call on the international community to respect the
Arms Treaty by stopping the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabic as they
are clearly targeting civilians.
This is Amnesty International's report of the incident: AL-MAGHSAL, AL-JA’MALA, MAJZ, SA’DA, 4 JUNE
The al-Shayba family lived in a tight-knit cluster of small houses in al-Maghsal area in Majz, north-west of Sa’da city. On the morning of 4 June, four consecutive airstrikes ripped through the homes. 11 members of the al-Shayba family, eight children and three women, were killed, while a woman and two children and were injured.
Fragments of MK 80 bombs, which have been systematically used in coalition forces’ air bombardments, were found in the ruins of the house by Amnesty International. As with many other coalition airstrikes, there was no evident military objective at or near the site of the multiple strikes, whose victims were all children and women.
Ali Qassem Salah al-Shayba, an animal trader and father of four, told Amnesty International:
“I was by the river on my way back home when our homes were bombed, at about 10am. It was a massacre; what can I tell you? A massacre. I lost my son Hassan, four, and my daughter Taysir, 12; my mother, Munawwar, my sister Aziza and her daughter Salsabil, six; my brother’s son and daughter, Mohammed and Yousra, aged nine and 16, and my cousin Shama’a and her three daughters, Altaf, Zahra & Batul, aged one, three, and six. My wife and my other four-year-old son were injured, along with my 16-year-old niece.”
Surviving family members said that the body of three-year old Zahra had not yet been recovered when Amnesty International visited the site four weeks after the attack.
“A family of 20 lived here, my brothers and I and our families. It was a two-storey house. There were only women and children. And we don’t have weapons, we are livestock traders. We have nothing to do with the war. I had 20 cows and over 50 goats. But they [coalition forces] destroyed it all,” said Ali Qassem Salah al--Shayba, pointing to the carcasses of the dead animals still strewn around the house.
The following daily report by the Legal Center for Rights and Development confirms the attack (as well as many others) reporting 12 civilians killed in this residential area, many of them children.
