INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL
SUPPORTING FAIR TRIAL and
HUMAN RIGHTS
Registration No. : 2795
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President Statement
lawyer
Dr. Abdul Hameed Abbas Dashti
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IF NOT NOW WHEN- WAR CRIMES AND LOOMING FAMINE IN YEMEN
Yemen’s disastrous war has been a major calamity: according to Stephen O'Brien, the Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefing to the UN Security Council two million people need emergency food aid to survive and child malnutrition has risen 63% in a year. He added, a child under five dies every 10 minutes of preventable causes.
Severe poverty, war damage, and a naval embargo by the Saudi-led coalition have all damaged food security.
Around 14 million people are currently food insecure in Yemen, including 2.2m children who are acutely malnourished and nearly 500,000 suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
Mr O'Brien urged the Saudi-led coalition to remove its no-fly zone and reopen Sanaa airport.
The blockade is having a "disproportionate impact" on civilians, he said, by stopping life-saving medication being flown in, and preventing 20,000 Yemenis accessing specialist medical treatment abroad.
Further a report mandated by the UN Human Rights Council and released on 25 August 2016 “Between March 2015 and 23 August 2016, an estimated 3,799 civilians have been killed and 6,711 injured as result of the war in Yemen and at least three million people have been forced to flee their homes.”
Saudi led military coalition is carrying out a devastating air bombardment campaign in Yemen that could amount to war crimes. The coalition airstrikes which have struck civilian infrastructure including health facilities, schools, factories, power facilities, bridges and roads is a clear violation of the Law of the War. More often than not such strikes have been disproportionate or indiscriminate and in some cases they appear to have directly target civilians and, or civilian objects.
Previously dependent on imports for 90% of its staple food, the country has been hit hard by a naval embargo imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, half of the country's medical facilities are no longer functioning. Some have been bombed by the Saudi-led coalition. High Commissioner Zeid said “Civilians in Yemen continue to suffer, absent any form of accountability and justice, while those responsible for the violations and abuses against them enjoy impunity. Such a manifestly, protractedly unjust situation must no longer be tolerated by the international community.”
However despite this painful fact, the international community, in particular the relevant UN human rights bodies have refused to publicly criticize the country, thus giving such intolerable act a free pass time and again.
All the while, the country faces a humanitarian crisis of extraordinary proportions that no political settlement can easily address.
UN brokered peace talks are not leading to sustainable peace thus far, as things stand, no political solution seems forthcoming.
ICSFT reiterates its call to the international community, in particular the UN human Rights Council to establish an international, independent body to carry out comprehensive investigations in Yemen, and duly bring the authors of these violations to justice. Further we call the UN to urge the Saudi-led coalition to remove the naval embargo and its no-fly zone and reopen Sanaa airport.