(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes have unlawfully hit numerous factories, warehouses, and other civilian economic structures in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the absence of credible and impartial investigations in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other coalition members should agree to an independent international inquiry into these and other allegedly unlawful attacks.

Seventeen workers remained inside the Middle East Workshop for Sewing and Embroidery when coalition aircraft bombed it on February 14, 2016. One died and four sustained injuries.

The 59-page report, “Bombing Businesses: Saudi Coalition Airstrikes on Yemen’s Civilian Economic Structures,” examines in detail 17 apparently unlawful airstrikes on 13 civilian economic sites, including factories, commercial warehouses, a farm, and two power facilities. These strikes killed 130 civilians and injured 171 more. Collectively, the facilities employed over 2,500 people; following the attacks, many of the factories ended their production and hundreds of workers lost their livelihoods. Further, with more than 20 million people in desperate need of humanitarian aid, the strikes on factories are contributing to the shortages of food, medicine, and other critical needs of Yemen’s civilians.

Taken together, the attacks on factories and other civilian economic structures raise serious concerns that the Saudi-led coalition has deliberately sought to inflict widespread damage to Yemen’s production capacity, Human Rights Watch said.

Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes have unlawfully hit numerous factories, warehouses, and other civilian economic structures in Yemen.

“The repeated coalition airstrikes on civilian factories appear intended to damage Yemen’s shattered economy long into the future,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher and author of the report. “Saudi Arabia and other coalition members have shown no interest in investigating unlawful attacks, or even compensating the victims for lives and property lost.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed victims and witnesses at the sites in the Sanaa and Hodaida governorates in March 2016, searched for possible military targets in the vicinity, and examined remnants of munitions found.

Until Saudi Arabia ceases unlawful strikes and either conducts investigations that meet international standards or agrees to an independent international inquiry, Saudi Arabia should be suspended from membership on the United Nations Human Rights Council. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any credible investigations by Saudi Arabia or other coalition members into these or other allegedly unlawful strikes, nor of any compensation for victims.

Raouf Mohammed al-Sayideh, a 25-year-old worker at a sewing and embroidery workshop hit in one attack, described rescuing fellow workers: “I heard the bang and came …to look for the other [injured] workers…. One worker was stuck under the rubble. The manager had to call his phone so that we knew where he was to rescue him. The last person we rescued from inside [the wreckage] was the [16-year-old] boy…. his legs got stuck between these two large blocks… his body was charred.”

Each of the attacks appeared to violate international humanitarian law, or the laws of war. Some may amount to war crimes. The laws of war prohibit deliberate attacks on civilian objects, attacks that do not discriminate between military targets and civilian objects, and attacks that disproportionately harm civilian objects compared with the expected military gain. Civilian objects include factories, warehouses, and other commercial enterprises so long as they are not being used for military purposes or become a military objective. Attacks on civilian objects committed willfully – deliberately or recklessly – are war crimes.

On March 26, 2015, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition – consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan – with United States participation, began an aerial campaign against Houthi and allied forces. The report documents strikes on civilian economic structures from the beginning of the aerial campaign to February 2016.

Parties to the Yemen conflict declared a cessation of hostilities on April 10, and began peace talks in Kuwait later that month. Though the level of violence in the country diminished after the ceasefire formally went into effect, both airstrikes and fighting on the ground have continued. On May 25, a coalition airstrike hit a water bottling factory in Lahj, injuring two workers.

Negotiations to end the conflict continue. Arriving in Kuwait on June 26 to support peace talks, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that “the economy is in precarious condition,” pointing to “an alarming scarcity of basic food items” in Yemen. The airstrikes have compounded an already bleak situation in which more than 80 percent of Yemen’s population requires some form of assistance, Human Rights Watch said...

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