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:

عاجل#صنعاء: استشهاد القاضي ربيد يحيى وزوجته وجرح آخرين جراء الغارة التي استهدفت منزله بحي النهضة وسط العاصمة#اليمن pic.twitter.com/1JoIrSyQXx

— قناةالمسيرةAlmasirah (@MasirahTV) January 25, 2016

Judge Yahya Robaid home #Sanaa #Yemen destroyed by #Saudi #UAE killin him,his waif,his son Salaah&wife&their 3 sons pic.twitter.com/Ki32lcEKZD

— Hussain Albukhaiti (@HussainBukhaiti) January 25, 2016

مشاهد قاسية: الطيران #السعودي يقتل القاضي" يحيى ربيد " و6 من أسرته بينهم أطفال ونساء في حي النهضة #صنعاء#منبر_اليمن pic.twitter.com/k7E7hGXk2w

— منبر اليمن (@Tribuneofyemen) January 25, 2016

#KSA-killed Judge Yahya Obaid was head of Terrorism-specialized court (NB crime Evidence HQ also attacked sameNight) https://t.co/3a6U42dfWB

— Dr Karim (@StopDestroyYem) January 25, 2016

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

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

Close ur eyes&Imagine4seconds,u sleep wth ur entire family here#Saudi #UAE jet bombd Judge Yahya home #Sanaa #Yemen pic.twitter.com/NFAgHuRvfG

— Hussain Albukhaiti (@HussainBukhaiti) January 25, 2016

Prayers&funeral of #Yemen-i Judge Yahya&2 of his grand children killed by #Saudi #UAE CO strike in #Sanaa ystr#EU pic.twitter.com/ZWOxflZZCv

— Hussain Albukhaiti (@HussainBukhaiti) January 26, 2016

On #Yemen airstrike targeting judge's home, UN Spox now generically condemns it, but only when asked. Where's enovy IOCA?

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 25, 2016

Ref: 16012501

  

8th June 2015, coalition airstrike hits a farm on Beni Ma'ath Yemen, killing 2 pregant women and 3 children

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”.

NOWHERE SAFE FOR CIVILIANS’ 15AIRSTRIKES AND GROUND ATTACKS IN YEMEN
Index: MDE 31/2291/2015 Amnesty International August 2015

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.

Ref: 15060801

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:

"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

 

4th June 2015, coalition airstrike hits cluster of houses killing 8 children, 3 women and destroying livestock in Majz, North Yemen

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.

‘BOMBS FALL FROM THE SKY DAY AND NIGHT’CIVILIANS UNDER FIRE IN NORTHERN YEMENIndex: MDE 31/2548/2015 Amnesty International October 2015

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.

Ref: 15060401

3rd June 2015, Saudi led coalition airstrike decimate a Yemen village killing at least 55, including 35 children and 11 women

On 3rd June 2015, a Saudi led coalition airstrike hit a cluster of houses in al-Eram, a village in the North West of Sa'da city, killing 55 residents including 35 children and 11 women, and decimating an entire community.

This is Amnesty International's report of the incident:

AL-‘ERAM, BENI MA’ATH, SABR, SAHAR, SA’DA 3 JUNE

When coalition forces airstrikes destroyed a cluster of nine houses in the eastern side of al-‘Eram, they decimated a community. The attack, which took place at about 5pm, killed at least 55 residents and injured nine others. Those killed included 35 children and 11 women.

In the village, north-west of Sa’da city, survivors told Amnesty International that several consecutive airstrikes hit the village and that the strikes had continued while rescue efforts were underway to look for bodies and survivors in the rubble.

Salah Basrallah, a farmer, lost 21 family members, including his six children and his wife, in the bombing. He told Amnesty International:

“My brother Saleh and his wife Alya, my wife Amina Mohamed, my mother Fatimat Hadi, my six children and my brother’s children were all killed. A total of 21 were killed in my family. At the time of the strikes, I was at the farm, outside the village. My wife was in the house, my children were playing outside. I heard the airstrike and I came to find my house had become a mound of rubble. We did not find some of the dead until days later. We had to dig in the rubble to look for the bodies while the planes were still flying overhead after the airstrikes.”

Ghaleb Dhaifallah, a father of four, whose 11-year-old son, was killed in the bombing, described the attack to Amnesty International:

“At the time of the airstrikes, I was at a friend’s house around 200 meters from here. There were four strikes. There was a gap of one hour between the second, third and fourth attack. My eldest son Mu’az was killed, he was 11 years old. He was injured by shrapnel in the head and died on the spot. He was playing with Sadeq Hamoud’s four children, my uncle’s two daughters and some other children they all died on the spot. About 12 of them were not buried in the rubble. The rest were under the rubble. We had to dig for a long time to find the bodies. I swear there were no arms depots here or any [Huthi] leader here. It’s just a place where normal citizens live.”

Residents said that it took five days to dig out all the bodies and that some of the victims were killed when coalition forces struck the area again while rescue efforts were underway. They said that no Huthi leaders or fighters were residing in the village. Amnesty International found no evidence of military activities in the village. Residents showed Amnesty International a disused school on the eastern edge of the village that had been bombed by coalition forces a month prior to the strikes on the village, causing no casualties as the school was not in use. They also showed researchers remnants of MK 80 series bombs, which they said they found in the rubble.

Amnesty International could not establish the identity of each and every victim of the attack. However, what is clear is that a large majority of the victims were civilian women and children. Even if Huthi fighters were among those killed in the attack, their presence in and of itself would not make these homes military objectives. An attack targeting the fighters would need to take into account the presence of so many civilians. Carrying out the strikes when so many civilians were present would likely make it a disproportionate attack.

‘BOMBS FALL FROM THE SKY DAY AND NIGHT’CIVILIANS UNDER FIRE IN NORTHERN YEMENAmnesty International October 2015 Index: MDE 31/2548/2015

The following documentary includes live footage from the 4th and 5th strikes of this incident (it says there were 8 altogether) and it talks about baby Khadijah who was pulled out alive from the rubble.

WARNING, the following media is GRAPHIC and DISTRESSING. It is 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.

The following report by the Legal Center for Rights and Development confirms the event, stating 52 dead, including 35 children and 10 women, plus 14 injured (in addition to many other incidents).

 

Ref: 15060301