Monday, 25 January 2016

25th Jan 2016, judge's house hit by Saudi led coalition airstrike killing family of in Sanaa, Yemen

On 25th January 2016 at 3am, Judge Yahia Robaid and 8 members of his family were killed, including 4 children and 3 women, and 2 others including 1 woman was injured. Judge Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. On the same night, the headquaters for 'Evidence of Criminal Research' building was also targeted by 2 airstrikes. As stated in the Foreign Policy publication "there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted".

The destroyed Sanaa house of Judge Yahya Roubaid, after it was hit in an airstrike carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, killing eight people.

This extract was in a report published in Foreign Policy:
In the capital of Sanaa, all that remains of the home where Judge Yahya Rubaid and his family once lived is a metal skeleton, chunks of concrete dangling from what used to be his living room. An airstrike hit at 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 25, as the judge and his wife, children, and grandchildren slept. A second strike followed shortly after, the sound echoing through the city.

According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason. What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted.

Mohammed Abdullah, Rubaid’s nephew, recalled digging through mounds of rubble, finding no bodies beneath.

“We immediately ran to my uncle’s home and frantically began looking for their bodies to see who had survived,” he said. He called one of his daughters’ phones and heard its muffled ringing close by. When Abdullah returned to dig once more for signs of life, he soon realized that buried beneath the gray stones were body parts — lumps of flesh, bone, and sinew. A few feet away, half of Rubaid’s body was found on top of a gas station opposite his bedroom.

“We lost count of how many body parts we had found; no one was whole,” he said.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/25/civilian-casualties-war-crimes-saudi-arabia-yemen-war/

This extract is from a report that was published on Middle East Eye:
A Saudi-led coalition strike killed a senior Yemeni judge and seven members of his family at their home in the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa, one of his relatives said on Monday.

"Judge Yehia Mohammed Rubaid, his son, three women, and three children where killed when a missile hit their home," his nephew Ahmed Mohammed told reporters.

Speaking in front of the debris of the destroyed house in central Sanaa, Mohammed said the attack was carried out overnight by coalition jets, which have been pounding rebels almost daily since March last year.

He said his uncle had presided over a court specialising in "terrorism cases" which tries suspects accused of links to Al-Qaeda.
 http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-led-coalition-strike-kills-yemen-judge-and-7-family-members-1866971697#sthash.irpICDAW.dpuf
A Saudi-led coalition strike killed a senior Yemeni judge and seven members of his family at their home in the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa, one of his relatives said on Monday.
"Judge Yehia Mohammed Rubaid, his son, three women, and three children where killed when a missile hit their home," his nephew Ahmed Mohammed told reporters.
Speaking in front of the debris of the destroyed house in central Sanaa, Mohammed said the attack was carried out overnight by coalition jets, which have been pounding rebels almost daily since March last year.
He said his uncle had presided over a court specialising in "terrorism cases" which tries suspects accused of links to Al-Qaeda.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-led-coalition-strike-kills-yemen-judge-and-7-family-members-1866971697#sthash.irpICDAW.dpuf

A Saudi-led coalition strike killed a senior Yemeni judge and seven members of his family at their home in the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa, one of his relatives said on Monday.
"Judge Yehia Mohammed Rubaid, his son, three women, and three children where killed when a missile hit their home," his nephew Ahmed Mohammed told reporters.
Speaking in front of the debris of the destroyed house in central Sanaa, Mohammed said the attack was carried out overnight by coalition jets, which have been pounding rebels almost daily since March last year.
He said his uncle had presided over a court specialising in "terrorism cases" which tries suspects accused of links to Al-Qaeda.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-led-coalition-strike-kills-yemen-judge-and-7-family-members-1866971697#sthash.irpICDAW.dpuf
A Saudi-led coalition strike killed a senior Yemeni judge and seven members of his family at their home in the rebel-controlled capital Sanaa, one of his relatives said on Monday.
"Judge Yehia Mohammed Rubaid, his son, three women, and three children where killed when a missile hit their home," his nephew Ahmed Mohammed told reporters.
Speaking in front of the debris of the destroyed house in central Sanaa, Mohammed said the attack was carried out overnight by coalition jets, which have been pounding rebels almost daily since March last year.
He said his uncle had presided over a court specialising in "terrorism cases" which tries suspects accused of links to Al-Qaeda.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-led-coalition-strike-kills-yemen-judge-and-7-family-members-1866971697#sthash.irpICDAW.dpuf



This is the daily report from The Legal Center for Rights and Development: 


Breaking tweets at that time:





https://twitter.com/WeenAlEnfigar/status/691512813764923392
https://twitter.com/WeenAlEnfigar/status/691512813764923392




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Location: Sana'a, Yemen

Thursday, 21 January 2016

21st Jan 2016, coalition double tap airstrike kills MSF ambulance driver and rescuers in village of Dhahian, Yemen

On 21st January 2016, a Saudi led coalition airstrike hit the village of Dhahian and then when rescuers arrived at the scene they struck again. Up to 26 people were killed, including an MSF ambulance driver and civilian rescuers and as many as 48 more were injured.

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.  


In the above video, just after the second airstrike, a father can be heard shouting "Waladi, waladi!" - "My son, my son!"



In the above video, a little boy crys in the hospital after being injured in the airstrike, asking "Am I going to die or not?"


Tweets from MSF as the news was initially breaking:



An MSF statement on 22nd January said:
At around 16h local time yesterday afternoon, 21 January, the ambulance service of the MSF-supported Al Gomhoury Hospital in Saada governorate, Yemen, was hit by an airstrike, killing one Ministry of Health (MOH) staff member.
The incident took place in Dhayan, about 20 kilometres from the city of Saada and not far from the MSF-supported Shiara hospital, which was hit with a projectile on 10 January.
The ambulance was hit as it arrived at the site of an earlier bombing. When people gathered to assist the victims, the same site was hit again. The driver and the ambulance were then hit in a third strike.
Two other local towns, Baqim and Al Jawf, were also hit last night in airstrikes. The total number of wounded and killed is still uncertain. MSF has received 40 casualties, six of whom have sadly died.
Ministry of Health and MSF teams are working at full capacity in the Al Gomhoury hospital.
“This latest loss of a colleague is devastating, and it demonstrates the ruthlessness with which healthcare is coming under attack in Yemen. People there are being subjected to this kind of violence on a daily basis. No one, not even healthcare workers, are being spared,” says Teresa Sancristoval, Emergency Coordinator at MSF.  


Later news reports from NYT and Middle East Eye reported up to 20 killed:


17 year old cameraman Hashim al-Homran in the photo below was one of those who died.

This report was published on The Intercept:
THE AMBULANCE, a white, ramshackle Land Cruiser, rattled along the bumpy road in Saada City, in the far north of Yemen, on its way to answer an emergency call. When the driver, 35-year-old Abdulmalik Amer, arrived at the scene in the Dhayan district, 12 miles from the city, he found a collapsed house with four inhabitants trapped inside — victims of a Saudi airstrike.

For Amer, the father of two young children, January 21 was a typical day of work as an ambulance driver. It was also his last.

Abdulmalik Amer, the MSF ambulance driver who was killed.

Amer and a colleague, with the help of local residents, retrieved the four injured people from under the rubble and were about to drive to the Jumhuriya Hospital, which is supported by Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, when another airstrike hit.

The ambulance was ripped to shreds, killing everyone on board, as well as those who had congregated to help. Women and children nearby were seen stumbling away.

When civilians gathered to help the injured, another airstrike came down. At least 26 people were killed and 48 injured in the series of strikes, which was caught on camera.
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/10/last-call-the-life-and-death-of-an-ambulance-driver-in-yemen/

This is that day's report from the Legal Center for Rights and Development: 

 







 



 

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Location: Sa'dah, Yemen

Sunday, 17 January 2016

17th Jan 2016, journalist killed and two others injured when Saudi led coalition airstrike targets resport of Jaref in Yemen

On 17th January 2016, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes targeted journalists visiting the spa resort of Jaref, which had been targeted several days earlier (killing 21 civilians).One journalist, Almigdad Mojalli, was killed, and two others were injured.

Almigdad Mojalli


This is The Intercept's report of that incident:

On January 17, Yemeni journalist Almigdad Mojalli was killed in a Saudi-led airstrike while reporting on civilian casualties in Jaref, a resort about 32 miles south of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Mojalli was on assignment for Voice of America. Bahir Hameed, a photojournalist who accompanied Mojalli that day, was injured in the attack. The following is Hameed’s account of what happened, as told to Mohammed Ali Kalfood, a journalist in Sanaa.

I HAD NEVER THOUGHT the place would come under aerial attack again, at least not that day, when I accompanied my friend Migdad Mojalli to Jaref. We were visiting the resort several days after it had been bombed by airstrikes; we were on assignment for the Voice of America to report on civilian deaths there. Actually, that was our second visit to Jaref; we had been there a couple of days earlier, but Migdad was asked by his editor to reshoot the videos all over again in high quality, and to focus on some specific things. So we had to travel back to Jaref.

In the morning, we got into a Hilux pickup truck: me, Migdad, and Abdulbari Naji al-Suma’ea — a friend who was our driver. It was a quiet day when we left Sanaa; no warplanes were heard above. I had been on several reporting assignments with Migdad outside of Sanaa, and I had never witnessed repeated strikes on the sites we visited. We arrived in Jaref around 9 a.m. after a drive of more than two hours.

We needed first to shoot the scene, the resort itself, where at least 21 civilians had been killed days earlier. It was really quiet; no one was there except the three of us. About 20 minutes after I started recording the scene, a warplane was heard roaring overhead. Everyone freaked out. I was so scared, looking into the sky and wondering whether it was really going to strike. The warplane was flying low. Migdad shouted, “Let’s spread out!”

We tried, but the missile was faster to hit the resort, just a few meters away from where we were standing. The explosion knocked me off my feet; I was flying before I rolled over a slope and landed a few meters away. I lay there for a couple of minutes. I was trembling with shock. Then I heard Migdad shouting for help. I was hardly able to stand up, feeling slight wounds in one of my legs and one arm.

I saw Migdad covered in blood, asking me to bandage his injuries. There were wounds in his chest and his face. He was grimacing and saying, “Wrap me up, bandage me quickly!”

I was still shaking and not able to comprehend what was happening. I couldn’t do anything, although I tried. Al-Suma’ea, our driver, managed to stand in spite of bad wounds in both of his legs and his arms. He asked me to bandage his wounds. I was really shaking and could barely do that. He then went to see Migdad. He tried to wrap Migdad’s wounds and I tried to help.

Then we took Migdad to the car. He didn’t say a word; he was only trying to breath. He looked in bad shape. We lay him in the back of the car. I was about to stay with him in the back seat when al-Suma’ea asked me to drive instead of him. He tried to, but he couldn’t because of his wounds. I tried to start the car and drive ahead, but I couldn’t drive for even 10 meters; the whole thing was having a terrible effect on me. I stopped.

Then al-Suma’ea asked me to stay with Migdad. He drove as best as he could. Migdad lay there in silence. After nearly 10 minutes, we stopped by a small clinic. We found a man there, and he said, “There is nothing here we can help you with. Take him to the town of Belad al-Roos.”

We were desperate; we needed any medical help. When Al-Suma’ea shouted at the man and asked him to do whatever he could, the man said, “The warplane would come back and strike us here.” Al-Suma’ea was very angry. He looked over to see Migdad, then started the car and drove as fast as he could, heading for Sanaa.

Migdad was already dead when we left that clinic. It was really tragic. There was nothing we could do about the whole situation. We arrived at the 48th Hospital in Sanaa and medics received us in the emergency ward. Migdad was taken to the morgue. I still can’t believe everything that happened to us.

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/02/bandage-me-quickly-the-death-of-a-journalist-in-yemen/

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Location: Yemen

Sunday, 10 January 2016

10th Jan 2016, MSF supported hospital hit by airstrike in Razeh, Yemen

On the 10th January 2016, the Saudi led coalition airstrike struck an MSF supported hospital in Razeh in Saada province, in the North of Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia. 6 people were killed and 7 were injured. This followed two other airstrikes against MSF health facilities in Yemen: one in Haydan, Saada province on 26 October 2015, and another on an MSF tented clinic in Houban, Taiz governorate, on 2 December 2015.

http://www.msf.org/article/yemen-crisis-update-%E2%80%93-3-march-2016



MSF Report:

 UPDATE - As of 17 January, the death toll has risen to six after a critically injured patient died on 16 January in the MSF hospital in Saada. The medical team did all they possibly could, but the condition of the patient was extremely critical upon arrival at the hospital six days ago. 

The blast at the MSF-supported hospital initially resulted in the death of five people, and eight were injured, two of them critically. While those critically wounded were transferred to the Intensive Care Unit in Saada, the rest were treated at the hospital in Razeh.

"We extend our condolences to the victim's family, whilst we condemn again the fact that a hospital was targeted in this conflict that has been ravaging the country for the past 10 months. We need to repeat over and over that the civilian population, the medical staff and the medical facilities should be protected during this conflict. One week after the explosion, patients and health workers are still scared to go back to the hospital. Attacking hospitals inflicts a terrible toll on the local population", says Juan Prieto, General Coordinator of MSF projects in Yemen.

Sana’a – An MSF-supported hospital has been hit by a projectile in northern Yemen resulting in at least four deaths, 10 injured and the collapse of several buildings of the medical facility. Three of the injured are MSF staff, two in critical condition.

According to our staff on the ground, at 09.20am one projectile impacted the Shiara hospital in Razeh District, where MSF has been working since November 2015. MSF cannot confirm the origin of the attack, but planes were seen flying over the facility at the time. At least one more projectile fell near the hospital. The numbers of casualties could rise as there could still be people trapped in the rubble. All staff and patients have evacuated and patients are being transferred to Al Goumoury hospital in Saada, also supported by MSF.

“All warring parties, including the Saudi-led coalition (SLC), are regularly informed of the GPS coordinates of the medical sites where MSF works and we are in constant dialogue with them to ensure that they understand the severity of the humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the need to respect the provision of medical services”, says Raquel Ayora, Director of Operations. “There is no way that anyone with the capacity to carry out an airstrike or launch a rocket would not have known that the Shiara hospital was a functioning health facility providing critical services and supported by MSF”.

“We reiterate to all parties to the conflict that patients and medical facilities must be respected and that bombing hospitals is a violation of International Humanitarian Law”, says Ayora.

The conflict is particularly acute in Razeh District. The population in the area has been severely affected by constant bombings and the cumulative weight of 10 months of war. Shiara hospital had already been bombed before MSF started supporting it and services were reduced to stabilisation, emergency, maternity and life-saving activities.

This is the third severe incident affecting an MSF health facility in Yemen in the last three months. On 27 October Haydan hospital was destroyed by an airstrike by the SLC and on 3 December a health centre in Taiz was also hit by the SLC and nine people were wounded. MSF teams struggle on a daily basis to ensure the respect of health facilities by all armed groups.

“We strongly condemn this incident that confirms a worrying pattern of attacks on essential medical services and we express our strongest outrage as this will leave a very fragile population without healthcare for weeks”, says Ayora. “Once more it is civilians that bear the brunt of this war.”

MSF asks for an immediate end to attacks on medical structures and requests that all parties unequivocally commit to creating the conditions for the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance. MSF also requests that those responsible for this attack investigate the circumstances of the incident.

http://www.msf.org/article/msf-supported-hospital-bombed-yemen-death-toll-rises-six 

This was the daily report for that day from the Legal Center for Rights and Development: 

(note it states 10 of Jun but this was actually report for 10 Jan)

 

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Location: Sa'dah, Yemen

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

5th Jan 2016, civilian population of Razih in Yemen indiscrimately bombarded by Saudi led coalition airstrikes

Reports indicate that the Saudi led coalition have been indiscrimiately bombarding homes in the district of Razih in the North West of Yemen, close to the border with Saudi Arabia.

This video shows an injured child who survived an air strike on her home in Razih, She has lost her leg and is still suffering in agony. In the same hospital room, a lady fights for her life as doctors try to stop the bleeding and clear her body from shrapnel.


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.  












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Location: Yemen
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