All parties in Yemen committed war crimes, says UN rights expert

Kamel Jendoubi, chairman of the Group of Independent Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen, on Wednesday, submitted a third report on violations in Yemen to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Yemen Shabab reported.

The report was prepared by a team of experts tasked by the UNHRC to document human rights violations in the war-torn country.

According to the report, the Yemeni government, the Houthis, the Southern Transition Council, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have committed crimes and flagrant violations amounting to war crimes. The report stated that: “There are no clean hands in Yemen.”

Speaking to the UNHRC, Jendoubi affirmed: “Our investigations confirmed aggravating levels of dangerous violations of the international law and the international human rights law. Some of which amount to the levels of war crimes.”

The team, according to Jendoubi, “is worried” as those who commit “dangerous crimes” escape punishment despite the progress achieved by some parties, which are investigating crimes and raising them to criminal courts.

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Jendoubi, however, reiterated that no one has been questioned over their crimes, stressing that: “Questioning is a basic element that guarantees justice for the Yemeni people.”

In the report which was issued earlier this month, “Yemen: A Pandemic of Impunity in a Tortured Land”, the team concluded that parties to the conflict continued to commit serious international humanitarian law violations, grave human rights abuses and acts constituting international crimes.

The UN experts stressed that the international community “can and should” do more to “help bridge the acute accountability gap” in Yemen.

The experts offered a series of concrete recommendations to the warring parties, states and UN bodies, including the Security Council and the Human Rights Council.