Airstrikes also hit Taiz International Airport badly damaging some sections.
Ref: 15101702
Showing posts with label Lahj. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lahj. Show all posts
Saturday, 17 October 2015
17th Oct 2015, 7 people killed when mosque in al Hajar village Yemen targeted by Saudi led airstrikes
On 17th October 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes targeted a mosque in al Hajar village in Al Qabbaytah District, Lahj province, killing 7 people (5 inside and 2 people passing in a car outside) and injuring a further 7 people.
Airstrikes also hit Taiz International Airport badly damaging some sections.
Airstrikes also hit Taiz International Airport badly damaging some sections.
Saturday, 1 August 2015
1st Aug 2015, 8 civilians killed 3 injured when Al-Hamra village hit by coalition airstrike in Yemen
On 1st August 2015 at 1 am in the morning, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a residential area in Al-Hamra village in Tuban district, Lahj governorate. 8 civilians were killed including 3 women and 2 children and 3 more were wounded. 8 houses were almost completely destroyed and 23 were damaged.
Ref: 15080101
Thursday, 9 July 2015
9th July 2015, airstrike hits school sheltering displaced in Lahj governate, Yemen, killing family of 10
9th July 2015, a Saudi led coalition airstrike hit a school sheltering the displaced in Tahrur village in the Lahj governate north of Aden, Yemen, killing a family of 10 including 4 children and 5 women.
This following is Amnesty's report of the incident:
TAHRUR, LAHJ, 9 JULY
On 9 July coalition forces killed 10 members of the Faraa family, including four children and five women, and injured 10 others when they bombed the Mus’ab ben Omar school where a dozen families displaced by the conflict were sheltering in Tahrur village, north of Aden in Lahj governorate on 9 July at about 1pm. The displaced people who were sheltering in the school are members of the “muhammashin” (marginalised) community – Yemeni citizens of African origins, one of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable communities in the country.
Salama, who lost three daughters, Yusra, 21, Shadia, 19, and Naama, 20 months, in the bombing, told Amnesty International:
“We came here to escape the war in Huta (a 1km west of Tahrur). We had nowhere else to go. We have nothing. How could I imagine that we were going to be killed here? My girls were killed and I wish I had died with them. I have nothing else in life”.
Mehdi Salah Mohammed, a bus driver in the army, was based in Hodeida but has not worked since the beginning of the conflict after his commanding officer stopped reporting to work. To supplement his salary he would make deliveries with his motorcycle. Mehdi told Amnesty International that on 9 July he was out on an errand when an airstrike hit his home, killing his wife, Naama, a mother of seven, and whose 5-year-old daughter Rahma was seriously wounded, said:
“We are just poor people and don’t have anything to do with anything. We have no relations with the Huthis. We fled our homes with nothing and when we tried to go back home to collect some of our clothes the Huthis didn’t even allow us to go. I lost my wife and now our seven children have no mother. What do I tell them? My wife’s sister and niece were killed and their children too are now orphans. May God help us.”
Neighbours told Amnesty International that the last time they saw any Huthis was four days before the strike, when two Huthis passed by the school but did not stop. They said that before the airstrike Huthis used to stay in a school and nearby building in another part of the village, less than a kilometre away. However, that location was never targeted by coalition forces and neighbours said that Huthi/Saleh loyalists armed groups stopped gathering there after the strike on the Mus’ab Ben Omar school, which killed members of the Faraa family. Amnesty International found no evidence indicating that the Mus’ab Ben Omar school was being used for military purposes. All that was visible in the ruins of the school were remains of the meagre possessions of the displaced families who had been sheltering there – blankets, cooking pots, children’s clothes - as well as a fin of a bomb from the Mark 80 series US-designed general purpose bombs, similar to those found at many other locations of coalition strikes.
'NOWHERE SAFE FOR CIVILIANS' AIRSTRIKES AND GROUND ATTACKS IN YEMEN
Index: MDE 31/2291/2015 Amnesty International August 2015
Index: MDE 31/2291/2015 Amnesty International August 2015
Ref: 15070901
Monday, 6 July 2015
6th July 2015, Saudi led coalition airstrike hits livestock market in Lahj governate Yemen, killing 40 people and injuring many more.
On the 6th July 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit a livestock market in Lahj governate, killing approximately 40 people and injuring many more.
This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:
FAYUSH, LAHJ, 6 JULY
On 6 July, a day prior to the airstrikes on the mosque in Waht, coalition forces bombed the livestock market in Fayush, north of Aden in Lahj governorate. The strike, the deadliest hitherto reported, killed some 40 people and injured scores. Adam Hassan Omar, a 52-year-old father of 11 who was injured in the strike told Amnesty International:
Shrapnel slashed through Adam’s abdomen, causing damage to his internal organs. Doctors who treated him said they had to remove some 15cm of intestine and his spleen.
Local residents and sellers in the adjacent food market told Amnesty International that at the time of the airstrike there were no unusual gatherings or activities in the market. “People were buying and selling goats and sheep and a few cows. They were normal people, some desperate people who had reluctantly come to sell their animals because they have no other income to feed their children,” a market seller said. “There was no fighting around here and there were no Huthis, just some unlucky people. If the bomb had fallen few meters away I could have been killed, just like they were killed. This is what God decided,” a local resident said. Another resident described the bloodshed after the explosion: “It was a massacre, body parts and blood of humans and animals were mixed together. It was a very painful sight and it was difficult to make sense of what was happening and to deal with it”.
Yet another resident said that his cousin was missing since the market bombing and he feared that he had been killed there. “After suhur21 he stayed up for an hour or so and then went to the market and never came back. Maybe he was injured and is in a hospital somewhere and cannot contact us [his family] or maybe he was killed and buried with the unidentified bodies.” Relatives and witnesses told Amnesty International some of the victims had been blown apart in the blast but there were no adequate systems available to allow for post-burial ID of unclaimed bodies or remains. Hospital workers told Amnesty International that they had received a large number of civilian injured from the strike.
The sandy soil at the site of the strike absorbed the impact and likely lessened the spread of shrapnel in the area. No remains were found from the bomb dropped by the coalition plane, but the crater – some three meters deep and four meters in diameter – indicates a likely 500-1,000 lbs (200 – 450 +Kg) bomb (similar to the ones used in many other attacks). Remains of animal carcasses were still strewn around when Amnesty International visited the site several days later.
Amnesty International could not trace most of the victims and families of victims of the attack, as most were not local residents but people who were visiting the market from surrounding areas. Amnesty International could not establish with certainty whether any members of the Huthi armed group were present at the livestock market at the time of the airstrike. However, information obtained from multiple sources, including witnesses and residents, indicate there was no combat or other military activity at the time of the attack and that most if not all the victims were civilian bystanders not involved in the conflict.
The attack violated the principle of distinction, a cornerstone of international humanitarian law, which requires all parties to a conflict to: “…at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives…”, and which defines military objective as “those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” Military advantage may not be interpreted so broadly as to render the rule ineffective.
Even if some combatants had been present at the site this would not have justified launching an attack on a market, which was sure to cause large scale civilian casualties and fatalities and which was not only disproportionate but also indiscriminate.
‘NOWHERE SAFE FOR CIVILIANS’AIRSTRIKES AND GROUND ATTACKS IN YEMENAmnesty International August 2015 Index: MDE 31/2291/2015
The following is taken from a report by researcher Iona Craig:
On July 6, for instance, at least 35 rescuers and bystanders were killed trying to help scores of traders hit in a strike five minutes earlier on a farmers market in Fayoush, in Yemen’s Lahj province.
Abdul Hamid Mohammed Saleh, 30, was standing on the opposite side of the road when the first missile hit the gathering of more than 100 men who had been arriving since before 6 a.m. to trade goats and sheep at the daily market. The initial blast, he told me, killed around a dozen men and injured scores more. Body parts flew through the air, and an arm landed next to Saleh. He said he began to flee, but hearing the screams of the injured he turned back and crossed the road to try and help. The second strike landed less than 30 yards from him, sending shrapnel flying into his back.
Mohammed Awath Thabet, a 52-year-old teacher who helped collect the bodies of the dead after the
twin strike, said at least 50 people, all civilians ranging from teenagers to men in their 60s, were killed in total.
“After 50 it was hard to tell,” Thabet said. “The rest were all body parts. People cut to pieces. What parts belonged to who? We couldn’t tell. Some were animal parts. Some were human,” he added, pointing to a brown stain on a nearby cinderblock wall left by a man’s head that had been stuck to it by the force of the blast. He and other witnesses said that there were no conceivable military targets or Houthi fighters in the area.
Yemen's Hidden War: How the Saudi led coalition is killing civilians, by Iona Craig, 1st Sept 2015
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/01/yemen-hidden-war-saudi-coalition-killing-civilians/
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:
FAYUSH, LAHJ, 6 JULY
On 6 July, a day prior to the airstrikes on the mosque in Waht, coalition forces bombed the livestock market in Fayush, north of Aden in Lahj governorate. The strike, the deadliest hitherto reported, killed some 40 people and injured scores. Adam Hassan Omar, a 52-year-old father of 11 who was injured in the strike told Amnesty International:
“I went to the market to see if I could sell three goats for a better price than I bought them. I used to work as a daily labourer mostly in construction in Crater (Aden), but since the war I have not gone there. It’s difficult to get there now and there is no work there anyway. I try to earn a little money buying and selling goats and sheep. I heard a plane above but did not worry; I did not think they would bomb a market. The plane was going around above for quite a while. Then the explosion happened. I remember feeling as if a strong wind pushed me, transported me and a strong pain as if I had been cut in half. Then I fainted and woke up here [in the hospital]. I don’t know who brought me here”.
Shrapnel slashed through Adam’s abdomen, causing damage to his internal organs. Doctors who treated him said they had to remove some 15cm of intestine and his spleen.
Local residents and sellers in the adjacent food market told Amnesty International that at the time of the airstrike there were no unusual gatherings or activities in the market. “People were buying and selling goats and sheep and a few cows. They were normal people, some desperate people who had reluctantly come to sell their animals because they have no other income to feed their children,” a market seller said. “There was no fighting around here and there were no Huthis, just some unlucky people. If the bomb had fallen few meters away I could have been killed, just like they were killed. This is what God decided,” a local resident said. Another resident described the bloodshed after the explosion: “It was a massacre, body parts and blood of humans and animals were mixed together. It was a very painful sight and it was difficult to make sense of what was happening and to deal with it”.
Yet another resident said that his cousin was missing since the market bombing and he feared that he had been killed there. “After suhur21 he stayed up for an hour or so and then went to the market and never came back. Maybe he was injured and is in a hospital somewhere and cannot contact us [his family] or maybe he was killed and buried with the unidentified bodies.” Relatives and witnesses told Amnesty International some of the victims had been blown apart in the blast but there were no adequate systems available to allow for post-burial ID of unclaimed bodies or remains. Hospital workers told Amnesty International that they had received a large number of civilian injured from the strike.
The sandy soil at the site of the strike absorbed the impact and likely lessened the spread of shrapnel in the area. No remains were found from the bomb dropped by the coalition plane, but the crater – some three meters deep and four meters in diameter – indicates a likely 500-1,000 lbs (200 – 450 +Kg) bomb (similar to the ones used in many other attacks). Remains of animal carcasses were still strewn around when Amnesty International visited the site several days later.
Amnesty International could not trace most of the victims and families of victims of the attack, as most were not local residents but people who were visiting the market from surrounding areas. Amnesty International could not establish with certainty whether any members of the Huthi armed group were present at the livestock market at the time of the airstrike. However, information obtained from multiple sources, including witnesses and residents, indicate there was no combat or other military activity at the time of the attack and that most if not all the victims were civilian bystanders not involved in the conflict.
The attack violated the principle of distinction, a cornerstone of international humanitarian law, which requires all parties to a conflict to: “…at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives…”, and which defines military objective as “those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” Military advantage may not be interpreted so broadly as to render the rule ineffective.
Even if some combatants had been present at the site this would not have justified launching an attack on a market, which was sure to cause large scale civilian casualties and fatalities and which was not only disproportionate but also indiscriminate.
‘NOWHERE SAFE FOR CIVILIANS’AIRSTRIKES AND GROUND ATTACKS IN YEMENAmnesty International August 2015 Index: MDE 31/2291/2015
The following is taken from a report by researcher Iona Craig:
On July 6, for instance, at least 35 rescuers and bystanders were killed trying to help scores of traders hit in a strike five minutes earlier on a farmers market in Fayoush, in Yemen’s Lahj province.
Abdul Hamid Mohammed Saleh, 30, was standing on the opposite side of the road when the first missile hit the gathering of more than 100 men who had been arriving since before 6 a.m. to trade goats and sheep at the daily market. The initial blast, he told me, killed around a dozen men and injured scores more. Body parts flew through the air, and an arm landed next to Saleh. He said he began to flee, but hearing the screams of the injured he turned back and crossed the road to try and help. The second strike landed less than 30 yards from him, sending shrapnel flying into his back.
 |
Mohammed Awath Thabet looks over the crater left by
the first bomb of a “double tap” strike
that killed at least 50
civilians on July 6 in Fayoush, Yemen.
Photo: Iona Craig
|
Mohammed Awath Thabet, a 52-year-old teacher who helped collect the bodies of the dead after the
twin strike, said at least 50 people, all civilians ranging from teenagers to men in their 60s, were killed in total.
Yemen's Hidden War: How the Saudi led coalition is killing civilians, by Iona Craig, 1st Sept 2015
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/01/yemen-hidden-war-saudi-coalition-killing-civilians/
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.
Ref: 15070601
Tuesday, 16 June 2015
16th June 2015, 11 civilians killed when 2 vehicles hit by Saudi led coalition airstrikes in Lahj, Yemen
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.
This is Mwatana's report of the incident:
http://www.mwatana.org/en/132016446
This is Mwatana's report of the incident:
Ref: 15061602
Saturday, 6 June 2015
6th June 2015, 16 killed when public bus hit by Saud led coalition airstrike in Dar Saad, Aden, Yemen
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:
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/01/yemen-hidden-war-saudi-coalition-killing-civilians/
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).
"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."Yemen's Hidden War: How the Saudi Led Coalition is Killing Civilians
https://theintercept.com/2015/09/01/yemen-hidden-war-saudi-coalition-killing-civilians/
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).
Ref: 15060601
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