New evidence of Coalition's cluster bombs - Amnesty International

Amnesty International is calling on the Saudi-led coalition to immediately stop using cluster munitions after reports surfaced that forces dropped the illegal explosives on San‘a on January 6, 2016. The attacks killed a 16-year-old boy, wounded at least six other civilians, and damaged homes and other property.

Amnesty International spoke to the brother of the 16-year-old boy who was killed in the attack: “At around 5am, he was on his way to the mosque opposite our house in al-Daqeeq district to perform the dawn prayers. We then heard the first explosion. A minute later we heard a series of consecutive explosions in the neighbourhood when the little bombs landed, one of which landed on the roof of our neighbour’s house… My mother found Essa at the mosque door in a pool of his own blood.”

Markings on the bombs’ remnants indicate that they were CBU-58 cluster munitions manufactured in the USA in 1978. The US is known to have transferred 1,000 CBU-58 bombs to Saudi Arabia sometime between 1970 and 1995.

The coalition denies using cluster munitions in San‘a, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, such as the recovery of the bombs’ cylinders and a number of descriptions of the explosions by residents that are consistent with air-dropped cluster munition attacks.

The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions banned the use, production, sale, and transfer of cluster bombs. Although the US, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen are not parties to the convention, any use of “inherently indiscriminate weapons [such as cluster munitions], which invariably pose a threat to civilians” is prohibited under the rules of customary international humanitarian law.

Read more from Amnesty International here.

Arbitrary detention by the Houthis - HRW

A new report by Human Rights Watch details the Houthi forces' practice of arbitrarily detaining and disappearing individuals with ties--real or imagined--to the Islah Party or other opposition groups. The report provides details of more than 20 cases of arbitrary detention and forced disappearance, out of 35 cases confirmed by HRW investigators. The people illegally detained by the Houthis include political activists, Islah party members, journalists, and lawyers. According to one Yemeni attorney interviewed by HRW, more than 800 people are currently being held by Houthi authorities in and around San‘a:

He said that based on information he has gathered from sources knowledgeable about detentions, the Houthis were holding at least 250 at al-Thawra pretrial detention facility, 180 at Habra pretrial detention facility, 167 at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), 165 opposition figures at Sanaa Central Prison, 73 at the Political Security Organization’s headquarters, 20 at al-Judairi police station, 10 at one of the homes of the former First Armored Division commander, Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, and an unknown number at Zain al-Abdeen mosque in Hiziyaz.

Based on interviews with witnesses and family members, the report claims that Houthi authorities are depriving many detainees of food and water, preventing them from contacting anyone on the outside, and holding them in otherwise illegal and abusive conditions. One journalism student, for example, who has been imprisoned for more than four months, was "first held for three days without food or being allowed to use the bathroom." A professor at San‘a University's medical school "was being held in a three-by-three meter cell with 14 other men and was only allowed to use the bathroom once a day."

Read the full report here.

Coalition drops cluster bombs on San‘a - HRW

Human Rights Watch has investigated reports of the use of cluster munitions in Saudi-led airstrikes on Yemen's capital, San‘a. As of Thursday, HRW had found indisputable evidence of the weapons in two neighborhoods, according to a report published today. The cluster munitions used were manufactured in the USA, and were likely sold to Saudi Arabia or another participating air force by the US, though Saudi Arabia has been known to buy US munitions from third countries as well. Although neither the US nor KSA has signed the international ban on cluster munitions, the use of such weapons--which are, by their nature, indiscriminate--in populated areas is a crime under international humanitarian law. From the HRW report:

“The coalition’s repeated use of cluster bombs in the middle of a crowded city suggests an intent to harm civilians, which is a war crime,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “These outrageous attacks show that the coalition seems less concerned than ever about sparing civilians from war’s horrors.”

Residents of two Sanaa neighborhoods described aerial attacks consistent with cluster bomb use. A resident of al-Zira`a Street told Human Rights Watch that his family was awakened at 5:30 a.m. on January 6 by dozens of small explosions. He said that he had been at work, but that his wife told him that when the family fled they saw many homes and a local kindergarten with newly pockmarked walls and broken windows.

A resident of Hayal Sayeed, another residential neighborhood, described hearing small explosions at around 6 a.m. He went out on the street, he said, and saw more than 20 vehicles covered in pockmarks, including his own, as well as dozens of pockmarks in the road. He said that at least three houses in the area had pockmarked walls and broken windows. He found a fragment in his car, he said.

Read the report here.