On the 24th November 2015, the Saudi led coalition launched 4 consecutive airstrikes on a residential area in the Aham district of Hajjah governorate in Yemen, destroying 2 adjacent homes housing 4 families. Bodies from the family of Mr Naser Monser Alhaj were retrieved and other families were believed to still be buried under the rubble at the time of the video report below.
Distraught eye witnesses in the video call on Muslims around the world to question if daily bombardments with 5 to 6 raids is acceptable by God and the Prophet.
The Legal Center for Rights and Development based in Yemen later confirmed that at least 10 people were killed in this incident and that 15 were injured, including 3 women and 5 children.
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.
On the 2nd November 2015, the Almasirah TV channel published further evidence of the Saudi led coalition dropping internationally banned cluster munitions on the Bani Sayah district in Razeh directorate in Saadah governorate.
The following video explains that the area had been under continuous bombardment over the previous 20 days, suffering more than 70 raids, during which cluster munitions were dropped, some detonating immediately and others lying in fields, waterways and roads where any unfortunate person or animal may stumble upon them.
Villagers speak of Saudi atrocities and their loss of family members as well as livestock. They highlight that due to the rural location, those people injured do not have access to medical attention. There are no ambulances or other modes of transport by which to take the injured to reach medical care, which results in an increase in the number of fatalities.
Beginning the night of July 24 lasting until dawn of July 25 2015, Saudi led coalition forces launched massive air raids on two residential compounds of a steam power plant, in the Yemeni port city of Mokha, Taiz governate. The compounds housed the plant workers and their families. Living in this residential city were 200 engineers and workers, and 600 citizens, as well as a number of displaced families.
At least 65 civilians were killed and many more were wounded, including women, 10 children and the elderly.
It is reported that after the arrival of a number of ambulances bombing returned again to target the paramedics, raising the number of victims, and then further raids were launched along the shoreline to target those people who were trying to flee.
WARNING, the videos below 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.
HRW reported:
Saudi-led coalition airstrikes that killed at least 65 civilians, including 10 children, and wounded dozens in the Yemeni port city of Mokha on July 24, 2015, are an apparent war crime. Starting between 9:30 and 10 p.m., coalition airplanes repeatedly struck two residential compounds of the Mokha Steam Power Plant, which housed plant workers and their family members.
The failure of Saudi Arabia and other coalition members to investigate apparently unlawful airstrikes in Yemen demonstrates the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of laws-of-war violations by the coalition, the Houthis, and other parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Saudi-led coalition repeatedly bombed company housing with fatal results for several dozen civilians,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher. “With no evident military target, this attack appears to be a war crime.”
Human Rights Watch visited the area of the attack a day-and-a-half later. Craters and building damage showed that six bombs had struck the plant’s main residential compound, which housed at least 200 families, according to the plant’s managers. One bomb had struck a separate compound for short-term workers about a kilometer north of the main compound, destroying the water tank for the compounds, and two bombs had struck the beach and an intersection nearby.
Bombs hit two apartment buildings directly, collapsing part of their roofs. Other bombs exploded between the buildings, including in the main courtyard, stripping the exterior walls off dozens of apartments, leaving only the load-bearing pillars standing.
Workers and residents at the compounds told Human Rights Watch that one or more aircraft dropped nine bombs in separate sorties in intervals of a few minutes. All of the bombs appeared intended for the compounds and not another objective.
Human Rights Watch saw no signs that either of the two residential compounds for the power plants were being used for military purposes. Over a dozen workers and residents said that there had been no Houthi or other military forces at the compounds. The power plant and the compound were built in 1986.
Early in the morning of July 25, a news ticker on Al-Arabiya TV, a Saudi-owned media outlet, reported that coalition forces had attacked a military air defense base in Mokha. Human Rights Watch identified a military facility about 800 meters southeast of the Mokha Steam Power Plant’s main compound, which plant workers said had been a military air defense base. The plant workers said that it had been empty for months, and Human Rights Watch saw no activity or personnel at the base from the outside, except for two guards.
Bagil Jafar Qasim, vice director general of the plant, provided Human Rights Watch with a list of 65 people killed in the attack, including 10 children. The list included two people still missing, whom Qasim believed were buried under the rubble and probably dead. Human Rights Watch visited three hospitals in Hodaida that had received 42 wounded from the attack. Several, including an 11-year-old girl, were in critical condition.
Wajida Ahmed Najid, 37, a resident in one of the compounds whose husband is a plant employee, said that when the first strike hit, she grabbed her children close and they huddled together hoping the danger would pass:
"After the third strike the entire building began to collapse on top of us. Then I knew we needed to leave because it was not safe to stay. I grabbed my girls and we started running in the direction of the beach, but as we were running pieces of metal were flying everywhere and one hit Malak, my 9-year-old daughter. Thank God she is going to be okay. While we were running I saw bodies, seven of them, just lying on the ground, in pieces."
A doctor at the hospital told Human Rights Watch that they had removed a metal fragment from Malak’s abdomen.
Khalil Abdullah Aidrus, 35, a nurse at the plant’s clinic, said that he rushed to al-Salam clinic in Mokha city when he heard news of the attack. There, he and other medics administered basic first aid, then sent the wounded on to hospitals in Hodaida. He said that within an hour of the airstrikes they had received at least 30 wounded and 8 bodies. At 1 a.m., he went to the main compound:
"As I walked through the gates I saw my friend, an engineer at the plant, Abdu Samid al-Subaie. He was lying on the ground, just outside his apartment. He had a deep gash to his waist and he was bleeding to death as his two children lay at his side screaming and crying. But it was hopeless. At the same time the airplanes were still buzzing above us. We could hear them for hours afterwards."
Loai Nabeel, 20, who works at a shop in the compound, said he rushed to his family’s apartment when the attack started. A second bomb hit the apartment before he got there, collapsing the roof. He found his mother and younger brother by the entrance and brought them to the beach before he went back to search for his sisters Hadeel, 12, and Taghreed, 17:
"It was dark. It took me 10 minutes to find Hadeel under the rubble. The bomb hit the roof of the room where she was sleeping and her head was seriously wounded. I found Taghreed in another room with minor injuries to her head. Hadeel is still in a coma."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/27/yemen-coalition-strikes-residence-apparent-war-crime
Power plants that produce electricity used by the military are legitimate military targets. However, the harm incurred to the civilian population by an attack on a power plant can be enormous, making its destruction unlawfully disproportionate, as the long-term harm to civilians will be far greater than the immediate military gain.
The Mokha power plant, built in 1986, was not struck in the attack. Human Rights Watch found no sign that either of the two residential compounds for the power plants had been used for military purposes. More than a dozen workers and residents said that there had been no Houthi or other military forces at the compounds.
Early in the morning of July 25, a news ticker on Al-Arabiya TV, a Saudi-owned media outlet, reported that coalition forces had attacked a military air defense base in Mokha. The ticker was swiftly taken down and the story can no longer be found anywhere on Al-Arabiya’s website. Human Rights Watch identified a military facility about 800 meters (875 yards) southeast of the Mokha Steam Power Plant’s main compound, which plant workers said had been a military air defense base. The plant workers said that it had been empty for months, and Human Rights Watch saw no activity or personnel at the base from the outside, except for two guards.
STEAM POWER PLANT RESIDENTIAL COMPOUND, MOKHA, 24 JULY
Coalition forces bombed a residential compound housing workers of the Steam Power Plant and their families in the south-western port city of Mokha on 24 July at approximately 10pm, killing at least 63 civilians and injuring 50 others.
Amnesty International visited the site three days after the airstrike and interviewed 21 residents and plant workers at the site and in five hospitals in Mokha and Hodeida (on the north-western coast). One resident, Amal Sabri, described the incident as “something out of judgement day. Corpses and heads scattered, engulfed by fire and ashes”. According to residents and plant workers, at least six consecutive strikes pounded the housing compound, several targeting the compound cafeteria and maintenance equipment store. Eyewitnesses said that prior to the multiple strikes on the main residential compound an airstrike had targeted a small residential compound 700m to the north of the steam power plant also used to house plant workers.
Amnesty International delegates at the site found no evidence that the residential compounds were being used for any military purposes. According to scores of residents interviewed by Amnesty International, no Huthi fighters were present in the compound, which also housed several families displaced by the conflicts in Ta’iz, Aden and surrounding areas. The nearest military objective, an air force base, is located approximately 800m south east of the residential compounds. It is unclear whether it was also targeted.
55-year-old Qaed Mohamed Abdelqader al-Sabri, a technician at the plant who lost most of his family in the airstrike, told Amnesty International that they were celebrating the birth of his 10-day-old granddaughter when their home was bombed:
“We were all at home celebrating the birth of my granddaughter Alaa’, with neighbours and family. I was about to enter the house when suddenly the door came off as the whole house shook. It was like an earthquake. The first bomb hit the maintenance equipment store, the second bomb hit the cafeteria. There was a moment of silence, which I took advantage of to rescue my family. That is when the third bomb landed. The electricity had gone off, I tried to go inside the house to look for a torch and for my family. I was screaming for my daughters, I could hear others screaming in search of their families. But all I saw was my wife and daughters drowning in their blood. Only my daughters Lina (16) and Samar (26) survived as they had run away to the coast when the strikes happened. Three of my daughters, my wife, my daughter’s husband and my granddaughter Alaa’ were killed.”
Another resident, 24-year-old Alaa Abdeljaber Thabet, recounted the ordeal to Amnesty International:
“The residence streets were bustling, men and children were standing in front of the cafeteria playing billiards. Suddenly I saw a light in the sky, and then an explosion in the residential camp [700m north of the main residential camp] that shook our whole compound. Fear and alarm permeated the whole city… suddenly after two minutes, the first bomb hit our residency targeting the maintenance equipment store. I could hear the plane circling above. I fell down due to the pressure of the explosion. After two minutes I got up to go help move the women and children to the coast where it was safer. After four minutes, the second bomb fell on the cafeteria, around 20 meters away from the first strike on the store. That second strike killed the most… I walked amongst pools of blood and severed limbs, there were over 20 bodies. There were four more explosions after that, people trying to escape. I have still not come to terms with what happened that day until now. I can still see the bodies and the injured and I can hear the screaming all the time.”
Among those displaced by the conflict who were sheltering at the plant housing complex was Redha Mohamed Qaed, a father of six. His relative Abdu Naji al-Bu’dani, an engineer at the plant and a local resident told Amnesty International:
“Redha has come here with his family from Aden, to escape the fighting there. He had planned to go back to Aden the next day (as the Huthis had just been forced out of Aden). When the explosion happened he was sitting next to a window at his sister’s house. He hugged his wife and children to protect them and his back was ripped by shrapnel and he passed away on the spot.”
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.
List of the dead as reported by HRW:
Location: Mokha Steam Power Plant Date: 7/24/2015
Name
Gender
Age
Killed/Wounded
Abdullah Muhammad Moqbel Bazel
Male
Killed
Mazin Ahmed Hassan al-Mujib
Male
Killed
Moath Abdullah Ali Abdullah
Male
Killed
Ali Fazel al-Abti
Male
Killed
Aymen Abdul Karim Bashir
Male
Killed
Wasim Saif Ahmed Asad
Male
Killed
Amro Ahmed Ba Alawi
Male
Killed
Muhammad Muhammad Ali Aqlan
Male
Killed
Khaled Ahmed Muhammad Qasem al-Sabri
Male
Killed
Ahmed Khaled Muhammad Ahmed Ghamazi
Male
Killed
Muhammad Mabruk Ahmed (unclear)
Male
Killed
Ammar Abdul Wasea Andul Waham Ahmed
Male
Killed
Tawfiq Ahmed Said al-Athoori
Male
Killed
Amjad Abdul Karim Bashir
Male
Killed
Muhammad Abdu Hassan al-Sabi
Male
Killed
Ahmed Muhammad Abdu Hassan al-Sabi
Male
Killed
Osama Yusuf Abdul Razaq
Male
Killed
Othman Bajash Othman
Male
Killed
Ahmed Ali Saif al-Adoa
Male
Killed
Bashir al-Salawi
Male
Killed
Thabil Abd al-Rahman Omran Nabil Muhammad Said
Male
Killed
Abd al-Rahman Ghamdan Nabil Muhammad Said
Male
Killed
Aymen Muhammad Ahmed Noaman
Male
Killed
Osama Muhammad Abd al-Hassan al-Absi
Male
Killed
Eissa Muhammad Mahyub
Male
Killed
Abd al-Samad Abd al-Haq al-Sabai
Male
Killed
Hamza Abd al-Rahman Muhammad
Male
Killed
Nazar Muhammadd Abd al-Ghani al-Harmim
Male
Killed
Adib Abd al-Wahab al-Hakimi
Male
Killed
Eissa Muhammad Abd al-Rahim
Male
Killed
Muhammad Adnan Shalan
Male
Killed
Haytham Khaled Muhammad Said al-Sharji
Male
Killed
Shakib Muhammad Abd al-Wadud
Male
Killed
Yusuf Abd al-Razaq al-Hakimi
Male
Killed
unidentified family member
Male
Under 18
Killed
unidentified family member
Male
Killed
unidentified family member
Male
Killed
Sahira Shawqi Shaher al-Adabji
Female
Killed
Bint Ahmed al-Wasabi
Female
Killed
Amana Ahmad Mohsen
Female
Killed
Ala Absi Muhammad Mahyub
Female
Killed
Rasfa Muhammad Qayed
Female
Killed
Asma Muhammad Abd al-Hassan al-Absi
Female
Killed
Eman Qayed al-Sabri
Female
Killed
Doa Qayed al-Sabri
Female
Killed
Sahar Qayed Muhammad al-Sabri
Female
Killed
Nahla Muhammad Ahmed Noaman
Female
Killed
Noha Muhammad Ahmed Noaman
Female
Killed
Thoraya Adib Muhammad Taher
Female
Killed
Nedal Muhammad Abdu
Female
Under 18
Killed
Khaled Ahmed Qasem
Male
Under 18
Killed
Yasser Muhammad Saleh
Male
Under 18
Killed
Visiting child from Aden
n/a
Under 18
Killed
Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
Male
Killed
Wife of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
Female
Killed
1st Child of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
n/a
Under 18
Killed
2nd Child of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
n/a
Under 18
Killed
3rd Child of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
n/a
Under 18
Killed
4th Child of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
n/a
Under 18
Killed
5th Child of Sadeq Abdullah Saleh
n/a
Under 18
Killed
Sameh Muhammad Ali Ahmad
Male
Wounded
Muhammad Najib Muhammad Abd al-Wadoud
Male
Wounded
Hadil Nabil Abdu Hassan
Female
Wounded
Malak Abdu Muhammad al-Azazi
Female
Wounded
Ali Abd al-Salam
Male
Wounded
Tamir Muhammad Hassan
Male
Wounded
Zakaria Najib Muhammad
Male
Wounded
Hussein Samir
Male
Wounded
Haifa Abd al-Samad Abd al-Khaliq
Female
Wounded
Gamila Ali Hizam
Female
Wounded
Gamil Qaid Thabit al-Subaihi
Male
Wounded
Muhammad Ali Tariq
Male
Wounded
Abd al-Wasia Abdullah al-Hakimi
Male
Wounded
*The details of five more casualties are on file with the power plant administration
On 19th July 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes killed at least 16 civilians, including 3 women and 9 children, and injured at least 16 more, damaging and destroying at least 11 homes, in the town of Yarim in Yemen.
This is HRW's report of the incident:
At about 2 a.m. on July 19, airstrikes killed at least 16 civilians, including three women and nine children, and wounded at least 16 civilians, in Yareem town, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Sanaa.
Human Rights Watch examined the site on July 22. The strike had partially damaged, and in some cases completely destroyed, 11 one-story residential homes and a two-story building.
Human Rights Watch also established that the site is located about 200 meters (219 yards) from the entrance to the 55th Rocket Artillery Brigade. Residents told Human Rights Watch that since the beginning of the air campaign in March, and on that night, they heard anti-aircraft guns being fired from the base. One nearby resident said that the now-dismantled Republican Guard, the military wing under the command of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, had controlled the base since 1994. The base had been the main depot of Scud ballistic missiles for the Yemeni military, the resident said, but those had been removed about four years ago, and now the main weapons at the base were artillery rockets. There had been as many as 2,000 troops at the base in the past, he said, but only 300 troops were there since current conflict started.
Local residents told Human Rights Watch that at about 1:30 a.m., three strikes hit the military base at 10-minute intervals. The fourth strike hit the residential area.
Sabah Saleh Ahmed al-Boghomy, 50, said she and her husband owned most of the houses in the neighborhood, and her relatives lived in several of them. She said she was asleep at the time of the strike and was awakened by her daughter screaming and shaking her, saying that planes were bombing the military base. Al-Boghomy tried to calm her by taking her outside:
"After we left the home, all of a sudden the windows of the house shattered and the roof collapsed. We heard a loud explosion but had no idea that it was in our own yard. At the time my three sons, their wives and children and my two [other] daughters were still inside the house…. I remember hearing my neighbor screaming, “Save my children, save me, we are under the rubble!” "
Her family survived the attack without injury, but she said she knew of at least 12 neighbors who were killed in the strike. The attack destroyed six of their family homes and three cars.
A local resident, Hana Saad al-Nazhi, told Human Rights Watch that when she heard the first explosion, she grabbed her children and hid in a small room in their home:
"We stayed in that room while all the strikes happened, so I assumed that my brothers were safe and had escaped, only to realize when I went outside that one strike had hit my brother’s house. It wiped his house to the ground, they blew it up and killed him and his daughters… What was the military target in my brother’s house?"
Another brother, Radwan Saad al-Nazhi, came to the site of the strike after hearing the blasts from his home, located a few streets away. He told Human Rights Watch that altogether eight members of two of his brothers’ families were killed, five of them children. His sister, Hana Saad al-Nazhi, and her children were the only ones who survived the airstrike, but with injuries:
"I am not employed, my brothers were, I am not. I make a living doing odd jobs in the streets.… I had to take my sister and her three kids out of the hospital because I could not pay their bill."
Muhammad al-Faqih, 45, said he was sitting in his living room when he heard the initial strikes on the military base. He grabbed his clothes and woke his five children and wife, telling them to get dressed and be ready to leave. His son Osama al-Faqih, 20, was walking down the steps out of the house just as the strike hit about 20 meters (7 feet) from the door of their home. Muhammad al-Faqih, standing behind him just inside the door, was blown back into the house:
"We scrambled to our feet and got out of the house, and I heard cries. I turned to my left and saw my neighbor, an older woman. She was lying on the ground, with a large rock crushing her legs. She was begging us to help her so we did. After we helped move it, we rushed off to get my son, who we realized was injured, to the hospital. As we got to the main road we saw another neighbor, Salma, wandering along, and wailing for help. She was badly burned and her head was open and gushing blood.… I don’t know what happened to her."
Osama had a metal shard lodged in his neck that the doctors planned to remove, Muhammad al-Faqih told Human Rights Watch. He said that they were lucky that other families had helped to pay their medical bill. His house was only slightly damaged by the strike.
Ali Muhammad al-Milah was in his house, which was destroyed in the strike, at the time of the blast:
"I didn’t see anything when the explosion happened, it was all black. My ears started ringing, they are still ringing now, days later. I came back the next morning and saw five bodies just lying on the ground, including the bodies of two young kids. Only yesterday when I was here they found the body of another kid, a young girl. They pulled her out of the rubble."
Another resident said he heard a fifth strike about 10 minutes later, again on the military base.
The military base was a legitimate military target. The attack that struck the residential neighborhood should be investigated by the coalition to determine if it was unlawfully targeted and whether all feasible precautions had been taken to minimize civilian loss of life and property.
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.
A brief translation of the above news reports is as follows:
Saudi warplanes have bombed Harat Al Salol in the city of Yarim in Ibb province, killing 13—five women,five children and three men and injuring 23 others. The raid was carried out on Sunday morning on a residential neighborhood, attacking the main street and a market at the entrance of Yarim city with 5 missiles. That resulted in the destruction of 11 homes and damaged scores of adjoining buildings and houses. The city is facing difficulties in providing rescue services and medical aid due to insufficient resources and the crowding of victims at the city hospital. Scarcity of medical supplies in health centers and the critical conditions of the injuries contribute to expectations of a rising death toll.
On 6th July 2015, the Saudi led coalition airstrikes hit 2 markets in the governorate of Amran in Yemen, killing a total of least 29 civilians including 1 woman and 15 children, and injuring at least 24 more.
This is HRW's report of the incidents:
Starting about 4:30 p.m. on July 6, bombs hit two locations in the governorate of Amran, north of Sanaa, killing at least 29 civilians, including a woman and 15 children, and wounding at least 20 civilians.
The first strike hit an area known as Bawn market, where vegetable sellers gather near the main road between Amran and Raydah, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) northeast of Amran City. Mufarih, 35, a potato seller who only goes by his first name, told Human Rights Watch he was walking towards the local mosque because he had missed the afternoon prayer, when the bomb hit:
"I suddenly saw all this dust rise and felt something hit my back, and then I blacked out. I woke up at Raydah Hospital at about 6 p.m. The doctors had removed a metal fragment from my back. I later went back to the site of the strike and saw how close I had been, I was only 15 meters away from where the bomb landed."
Nishwan, 21, a vegetable seller who only goes by his first name, described the blast to Human Rights Watch:
“It was like fire lifting me into the air. My leg was broken in three places. I tried to stand up, but couldn’t.”
Radwan Yahya Ahmed, 25, a fruit seller injured in the strike, showed Human Rights Watch his wounds. Doctors had to remove large pieces of skin from his shoulders to transplant to his cheeks. He and other witnesses to the strike interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that they had not seen any Houthi or allied military vehicles on the road at the time of the strike, nor did they know of any military targets in the area. The Bawn market strike killed at least 10 civilians, including nine children, and wounded at least six.
Minutes later, a second bomb struck the Jawb market along the road just over one kilometer (0.62 miles) further north, damaging a gas station, a car outside the local mosque, and the home of Mansour Ahmed Taqi, 40, a local farmer.The market had been there for at least two years and was the largest in the area, attracting hundreds of people daily.
Faten Saleh said she was standing at the doorway of her home with her baby and her older son and daughter when the bomb hit the first market. She saw her husband, Zahir Mabkhoot Taqi, running towards her with their son Taqi, 9, close behind:
"He [Zahir] was calling and waving at me to grab my bag and to leave the house as quickly as possible, saying that the planes might bomb us as well. About 15 meters (16 yards) from our house, suddenly another bomb landed. A piece of metal hit him in the back and cut through his side, killing him. We found Taqi’s body ripped to pieces. My husband’s cousin was close by, but was only wounded. My husband was just a simple farmer, but later on TV, they said he was a Houthi trainer. I don’t know why they would lie about that, but I promise you it’s not true."
Mabkhoot al-Jawbi, a local farmer, 70, said his son, grandson, aged 17, and two cousins were killed in the blast. He helped with the burial at the local mosque and said that he helped with 17 funerals of local villagers.
Mansour Ahmad Taqi, another relative of Zahir Taqi, said he was home when the strike hit, damaging part of his house. When he came to the gate, he saw at least 20 wounded and dead lying in the market place, at least three in the car outside the local mosque, another person lying at the gate of the mosque, and another three people lying near the entrance to the home of Zahir Taqi—namely Zahir, his son Taqi Zahir Mabkhoot Taqi, aged 9, and his cousin Habib Saleh Taqi.“His son’s hand was found inside the electricity meter of the house on the other side of the road days later,” Mansour Taqi told Human Rights Watch.
The Jawb market strike killed 22 people, at least 19 of them civilians, including one woman and six children, and wounded 14. Four of the dead were members of the Taqi family. Three people who were in a car at the time of the attack had not been identified at the time that Human Rights Watch visited, so it was not possible to determine whether they were civilians.
Al-Jawbi told Human Rights Watch that after the attack, there was no more market in the area: “Now there is nothing. People are afraid.” He said that he was unaware of any military targets in the area, such as military vehicles, at the time of the strike.
According to Khaled Sanad, the representative of an aid organization linked to the Houthis, a third airstrike hit a security checkpoint south of Amran, about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) away, at about the same time as the attack on the two markets, killing four Houthi members manning the checkpoint and three civilians who were on the road at the time.
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.
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:
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
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).
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.
