US-Saudi Areal Aggression in It’s Fifth Year Systematically Targets Children, Women and Vital Yemeni Infrastructure

YemenExtra

M.A.

For over four years, the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Yemen has killed thousands of civilians in airstrikes, mostly children and women.

United Nations reports say that Saudi and Emirati airstrikes committed so many war crimes, confirming they had hit residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, jails, boats, schools and medical facilities. The report accused the Saudi-led coalition of routinely having failed to consult its own “no-strike list” of more than 30,000 sites in Yemen, including refugee camps and hospitals. It also said the Saudi Air Force had not cooperated with investigators about its targeting procedures. The report has resulted in at least 16,700 casualties, including 6,475 civilians killed, but the real figure is certainly significantly higher, according to the United Nations. The main cause of civilian casualties in the war, the report says, has been airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition.

Indiscriminate airstrikes, which could amount to war crimes, have killed and wounded thousands of civilians. Such examples of indiscriminate airstrikes are the Saudi-led coalition airstrike in last August that hit a school bus, killing and injuring 131, including 96 children. The schoolchildren on a field trip in Yemen were chatting and laughing when the airstrike hit them. For a group of boys in northern Yemen, that day was supposed to be a celebration — a much-anticipated field trip marking their graduation from summer school. A video taken by one of the boys shows the classmates jostling and yelling on a packed school bus, clearly excited for the day ahead. Their delighted chatter drowns out the person taking roll call, red pen poised in hand. A parent outside the window waves goodbye to their child. Within hours the boy who took the video, along with most of his classmates, would be dead — killed after a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit their school bus.

A similar story happened recently, other schoolchildren were killed and injured by US-Saudi airstrikes.  This time the crime was committed by targeting a school in a residential neighborhood in Sana’a. “Everyone was hysterical, some were crying and shouting in panic,” Fatehiya Kahlani, principal of Al Raei school, said. “The situation was horrible as the school population is 2,100. Some girl students were killed and others were wounded and are in a hospital as a result of the missile strike. The school building was destroyed too.” Local sources say that there was a mother crying,” My hungry daughter has been killed.” In such a crime, you can add no comment to describe the amount of ugliness of US-Saudi Aggression on Yemen. Can you imagine yourself in such a horrible situation!, Can you imagine your kids or relatives among the victims.

Another Saudi-led coalition airstrike in last April hit a wedding in Hajjah, reportedly killing 20 civilians and wounding 30 more. The strike also killed the bride and wounded the groom. Another celebration turned to a funeral. In that massacre, a video was distributed showing a little child holding his killed father. While other people were trying to take his father’s body away, he was crying and begging them to leave him beside his father and not taking his father’s body. A sad scene, if you watch the video, you will never be able to stop crying.

The list of massacres goes on and on. The US-Saudi aerial aggression carried out a massacre weeks after the school bus massacre, targeting four displaced families, mostly women and children, who were on a car, in Ad-duraihimi district in Hodeidah. Local sources in Hodeidah said that the aggression committed a new crime in which 22 children and four women were killed, in Alkoui area in Ad-duraihimi district. The crime is not less horrible than the crime committed on September 20, 2015, targeting a popular market in Al Muqna area, Saada province, where the number of martyrs reached 90 citizens and dozens were injured.

It is not possible to list all the Saudi massacres in Yemen, some crimes have not been recorded completely. Ugly massacres have been committed against civilians especially women and children almost everyday since March 2015. US-Saudi massacres have exposed the US and its allies determination to violate all the laws and have proved that they are nothing but criminals and terrorists. In the International Women’s Day, human rights organizations celebrated all around the world, despising the US-Saudi Aggression killing Yemeni women. Over four years full of a massacre, no human rights organization neither the international community has taken a strong position to stop Yemeni bleeding.

This post originally ran on Almasirah English