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UN calls for impartial investigation in Yemen

August 27, 2018 at 10:42 am

A Yemeni man in despair after the Saudi-led coalition destroyed his home on 20 September 2017 [Maurice Schleepen‏/Twitter]

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen has called for an “independent and impartial investigation” into attacks that target civilians. Lise Grande said that this is in order for everyone to know the truth.

“What is happening in Yemen is unimaginable,” Grande warned in a statement issued on behalf of aid agencies working in Yemen. “The time has come for everyone to wake up to the terrible reality of the war and its human cost, and the need to work together to end the hostilities.”

She pointed out that, on 22 August, an air strike hit a house in the Durahmi district south of the city of Hodeida, killing four civilians and injuring two others. A day later, she added, an air strike killed 27 civilians, including 22 children, four women and a driver, in the same district.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has said that Saudi and Emirati leaders face possible criminal liability charges for their military intervention in Yemen since March 2015, and subsequent interventions in other areas of public life in the country. The New York-based rights organisation added that investigations by the Saudi-led coalition forces into alleged war crimes in Yemen lacked credibility and failed to provide justice for civilian victims. Coalition investigators, claimed HRW, are covering up war crimes in one form or another.

According to the UN, 10,000 people have been killed in the ongoing war in Yemen, which has also caused serious epidemics and famine in most of the country’s cities.

UAE: Yemen war is ‘ugly’, no conflict is ‘clean’