Human Rights Watch: Banned munitions supplied by US were used by Saudi-led Aggression on Yemen

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Humans Rights Watch said today that it has credible evidence that the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen used “banned cluster-munitions supplied by the United States in airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen”.

Cluster munitions pose long-term dangers to civilians. They are prohibited by a 2008 treaty adopted by 116 countries, although the United States, Saudi Arabia as well as Yemen have not adopted this treaty.

According to HRW, cluster munitions contain dozens or even hundreds of submunitions that are designed to explode after spreading out over a wide area, often the size of a football field. This puts anyone in the area at the time of attack at risk of death or injury.

From videos and photos emerging from the governorate of Saada in Yemen since mid-April 2015, it was seen that cluster munitions have been used during the recent weeks of airstrikes in the Houthi stronghold of Saada governorate, in the north. Satellite imagery has also found that these weapons appear to have been landed on a cultivated plateau, “within 600 meters of several dozen buildings in four to six village clusters”.