‘Three years of torture is enough’: Saudi air strikes still rain down on Yemen

YemenExtra

Y.A

When Saudi-led warplanes fly over Sanaa, or any other area of Yemen, one can hear old men and women praying to God, asking to be spared by the incoming air strikes. Others simply curse Saudi Arabia.

While many of these civilians might not fully understand the political machinations behind the current war in their country, they understand only too well that the Saudi-led coalition’s air strikes continue to kill civilians in residential areas, markets, hospitals and even camps for refugees.

The coalition was formed in March 2015. While the UN has struggled to issue a reliable death toll in the conflict, in September it stated that over 60 percent of recorded civilian deaths were at the hands of coalition forces.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Saudi-led coalition in September of committing war crimes in Yemen, called on the United Nations Security Council to launch an international investigation into the coalition’s “unlawful” air strikes affecting civilian adults and children. When a February Security Council resolution extended UN sanctions on Yemen by a year, it did not specifically call for an investigation into Saudi responsibility for civilian casualties.

In September, the UN said it had verified 5,144 civilian deaths during the war in Yemen, mainly from air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an independent international investigation, saying such a move would “go a long way in putting on notice the parties to the conflict that the international community is watching and determined to hold to account perpetrators of violations and abuses.”

Residents in Houthi-controlled areas ,all of them, are opponents of the Saudi-led air strikes, which they see as targeting civilians more than they do the opposition.

Rights group: Some raids are war crimes

Farjia al-Dhafiri, who is in her 50s, lives in Sanaa, which fell under Houthi control during late 2014. She said she is strictly opposed to Saudi Arabia because of the daily attacks on the capital. She said she herself witnessed a massacre in a residential area in the Attan neighbourhood last year.

Dhafiri prays every day to God, asking for the war to end and for the deaths of civilians to be avenged – but her prayers increase when she hears the warplanes above.

“I am an old woman and I do not care about my life, but I care about my children and grandchildren as the warplanes may kill them at any moment,” she said.

“And even if the air strikes don’t kill them, it is still killing their future,” she added, while praying to God to help Yemen.

Dhafiri typifies many Sanaa residents, she says, in that she is illiterate and does not know much about politics. But she does know a lot about humanity.

Last August she was near the village of Attan when she witnessed an air strike on a residential area which left 14 people dead.

‘Three years is enough’

While many Yemenis have adapted to life under the air strikes, they hope that war ends soon so they can live peacefully.

Hamadah Ayman, 31, a resident of Sanaa who lost his work at a factory after it was targeted by Saudi-led air strikes in 2016, said that three years were enough for the coalition to realise that it could not succeed in Yemen.

“After three years of targeting civilians, Yemenis have become more aware that Saudi Arabia does not work in the interest of Yemenis,” he said. “Rather, Saudi Arabia works for its own interests, killing Yemenis everywhere.”

“While I was walking back to my home, I heard the buzz of the warplanes, and I prayed to God that they avoid civilians, but in minutes the buzz grew nearer to me,” she recalled.

“Suddenly, the bombing happened near me, and I couldn’t see anything because of the dust. I heard the sound of people crying, but I did not immediately understand what had happened.”

Later, Dhafiri saw rescuers taking bodies out from under the ruins and putting them into cars. Houthi sources have said that there were no leaders in that residential area, where some of Dhafiri’s relatives live, during the strike.

Since the start of the war, scores of coalition strikes have indiscriminately killed and wounded thousands of civilians, in violation of international laws regulating warfare, Human Rights Watch said last year, adding that the coalition has also used internationally banned cluster munitions.

The group has also documented 58 air strikes which it says were illegal since the start of the campaign, which have killed nearly 800 civilians and hit homes, markets, hospitals, schools, civilian businesses and mosques.

“Some attacks may amount to war crimes,” HRW said. “These include air strikes on a crowded market in northern Yemen on March 15 that killed 97 civilians, including 25 children, and another on a crowded funeral in Sanaa on October that killed over 100 civilians and wounded hundreds more.”

“Human Rights Watch investigated 18 apparently unlawful strikes, some of which used US or UK-supplied weapons, on 14 civilian economic sites. The strikes killed 130 civilians and wounded 173 more. Following the attacks, many of the factories ended production and hundreds of workers lost their livelihoods,” HRW added.

The coalition has repeatedly denied allegations of war crimes, and says its attacks are directed against its foes in Yemen’s armed Houthi movement, not civilians.

But Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.”The Saudi-led coalition’s repeated promises to conduct its air strikes lawfully are not sparing Yemeni children from unlawful attacks.

Ayman said he hoped that the international community forces could stop Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. “I am not a Houthi, I am a man who hopes to build his future in a safe country, but the daily air strikes threaten our lives and future. I hope that all Yemenis oppose the air strikes.”

Many Yemenis have lost relatives in air strikes and have been demanding investigations into the incidents and punishment against the perpetrators. One Yemeni, who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, said his brother was killed alongside seven others during an air strike in Haddah.

“Saudi Arabia says it targets the Houthis, but in fact they target civilians. My brother was killed while he was inside his house in a residential area.

Ayman said that he wanted to send a message to Saudi Arabia that three years of torture was enough. “I hope to start building Yemen instead of destroying it.”

Source: Website