Amnesty Says Saudi Used US-Made Bomb in August Airstrike on Sana’a
YemenExtra
Amnesty International says a bomb used by the Saudi regime in a fatal airstrike on an apartment building in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in August was made in the United States.
The strike on August 25 destroyed the building and left 16 civilians dead and 17 others injured, including a five-year-old girl called Buthaina al-Rimi, who was orphaned after her parents and five siblings as well as her uncle were killed. Her photograph went viral afterward,drawing sympathy.
After an examination of the remnants of the weapon used in the aerial attack, Amnesty found that the bomb had been made in the US.
“We can now conclusively say that the bomb that killed Buthaina’s parents and siblings, and other civilians, was made in the USA,” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East research director, said on Friday.
The so-called coalition led by Saudi Arabia against Yemen admitted conducting the air raid, blaming civilian deaths on a “technical error.” The UK-based rights body described as shameful the continued military support provided by the United States and Britain for the Saudi campaign “instead of holding the coalition accountable for their actions in Yemen.”
“There simply is no explanation the USA or other countries such as the UK and France can give to justify the continued flow of weapons to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition for use in the conflict in Yemen. It has time and time again committed serious violations of international law, including war crimes, over the past 30 months, with devastating consequences for the civilian population,” Maalouf said.
Amnesty urged an independent international inquiry into the Saudi campaign, citing “the coalition’s complete disregard for civilian lives, as well as their lack of commitment to effective investigations.”
The United States and Britain have been often denounced over weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia and subsequently fueling human rights violations and war crimes in Yemen.
Britain has signed a framework deal on military and security cooperation with Saudi Arabia, media outlets said on September 19.
Saudi Arabia along with his allies has been pounding Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.
More than 12,000 people have been killed since the onset of the campaign. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble.
The Saudi war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic across Yemen. Earlier this month, the UN’s human rights chief called for an urgent investigation into Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes against civilians in Yemen.