Saudi-UAE, Received a Number of Darts in the Security Council’s Report

YemenExtra

Instead of a single State there are warring statelets, and no one side has either the political support or the military strength to reunite the country, this is the result of the Saudi-UAE aggression during three years, according to a UN Security Council report issued last Wednesday.

Another challenge for Yemen is the existence of proxy forces, armed and funded by member States of the Saudi-UAE led coalition, who pursue their own objectives on the ground. The battlefield are further complicated by the terrorist groups Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Islamic State (ISIS) (Daesh), out the official military organization under the names of the security belt, the Shabwan elites and the Hadhrami elites.

As for the crimes committed by the coalition against the civilians with airstrikes (precision-guided weapons), the report pointed to ten crimes that killed 157 civilian and 135 wounded and destroyed 5 buildings, two ships and a market.

The ballistic missiles launched by the Yemeni Army and the popular committees (Houthi forces) against Saudi Arabia, changed the tenor of the conflict and has the potential to turn a local conflict into a broader regional one.

The panel said that the Saudi-UAE aggression to the conflict committed widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law throughout three years. This included indiscriminate Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes and the blockade; arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances and torture by the UAE government, and both Saudi obstruction of humanitarian assistance. It described coalition restrictions on entry points to Yemen as having “the effect of using the threat of starvation as an instrument of war”.