Monday, September 3, 2018 12:34:03 PM
HRW: Saudi Bombing of Yemeni kids Bus, War Crime

Human Rights Watch said on Sunday that an airstrike by the US-Saudi aggression that targeted a bus carrying children in Dahyan in the north of Saada province was a war crime.

The Organization stressed that states should immediately freeze arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Support an independent UN investigation into violations by all parties to the armed conflict in Yemen.

The aerial aggression committed a horrific crime by targeting a bus carrying children at the end of the summer session in the center of the Dahyan market in Saada on Thursday (August 9th), killing 52, including 41 children, and 79 wounded, including 55 children.

The Human Rights Watch said in its website that the coalition of aggression has carried out since March 2015 several air raids in violation of the laws of war without adequate follow-up investigations, putting arms suppliers under the risk of complicity in war crimes. The organization identified US-origin munitions in at least 24 illegal attacks on the alliance in Yemen. The United States reportedly delivers $7 billion worth of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

"The Saudi-led coalition attack is adding a bus full of children to its horrific record of killing civilians at weddings, funerals, hospitals and schools in Yemen," said Bill Van Esfeld, senior human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. He noted that countries with knowledge of this record, who provide the Saudis with bombs, may be considered complicit in future attacks that kill civilians.

It noted that individuals who committed serious violations of the laws of war could be tried for criminal purposes, intentionally or recklessly, for war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally responsible for assisting, facilitating, supporting or inciting a war crime. Human Rights Watch said, although the alliance of aggression initially reduced the possibility of an illegal attack, the coalition later said it would investigate the raid, asserting that coalition investigations rarely found faults. It confirmed that it had concluded that the Joint Accident Assessment Team of Yemen had not conducted credible investigations since its establishment in 2016.

In November 2015, the State Department approved the sale of 4,020 GBU-12 Biffway bombs as part of a $ 1.3 Billion Arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but the United States suspended parts of the sale, which included precision-guided munitions December 2016. The Trump administration reinstated the decision in March 2017. In June 2017, the United States agreed to another arms agreement based on Saudi pledges to reduce civilian casualties.

The United Kingdom and France remain major arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia, Germany suspended arms sales to warring parties in Yemen, and the Netherlands and Sweden adopted a more restrictive approach to arms sales. A Belgian court has suspended four arms licenses to Saudi Arabia because of concerns about violations in Yemen, and Norway has suspended its arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

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