HRW Accuses Saudi-Led Coalition of War Crimes in Yemen
Local Editor
A Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a crowded funeral ceremony in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on October 8, 2016, is an apparent war crime, Human Rights Watch stated.
The brutal attack martyred at least 140 people and wounded more than 500, including children.
The funeral strike underscores the urgent need for credible international investigations into laws-of-war violations in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said.
The United States, United Kingdom, and other governments should immediately suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The coalition should urgently allow commercial flights to Sanaa, suspended in August, to allow anyone who is sick or wounded to seek medical treatment abroad.
"After unlawfully attacking schools, markets, hospitals, weddings, and homes over the last 19 months, the Saudi-led coalition has now added a funeral to its ever-increasing list of abuses," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director.
"An independent international investigation of this atrocity is needed as the coalition has shown its unwillingness to uphold its legal obligations to credibly investigate."
The rights group interviewed 14 witnesses to the attack and two men who arrived at the scene immediately after the airstrike to help with rescue efforts, among other sources, by phone, and reviewed video and photos of the strike site and weapons remnants.
On October 8, several hundred people had gathered in the al-Sala al-Kubra community hall, which has a capacity of over 1,000, for the funeral ceremony of Ali al-Rawishan, the father of the Sanaa-based administration's interior minister, Jalal al-Rawishan.
All the witnesses who spoke to HRW said that at about 3:30 pm, at least two air-dropped munitions penetrated the roof of the hall and detonated a few minutes apart.
Photos and video footage taken after the attack show charred and mutilated bodies strewn in and outside the hall, the building destroyed, and rescuers carrying out bodies to ambulances.
A spokesman for the Sanaa-based Health Ministry, Dr. Tamim al-Shami, told HRW on October 9 that at least 110 people had been martyred and 610 wounded, but that the death toll was likely to rise because a number of bodies had been burned or mutilated beyond recognition.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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