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Saudi Arabia targets Yemen’s Sa’ada with cluster bombs

A BLU-108 canister with four submunitions still attached found in the al-Amar area of Safra, Sa’ada Province, northern Yemen, April 17, 2015.

At least eight civilians have been killed as the Saudi regime once again used internationally banned cluster bombs in its raids on the Yemeni province of Sa’ada in defiance of global condemnations.

Saudi Arabia conducted rocket attacks on a market in Razih district of Sa’ada, using cluster bombs on Sunday, Yemen’s al-Masirah TV channel reported, adding that eight civilians were killed and seven others injured in the assault.

Meanwhile, the Saudi warplanes bombed several residential buildings in Majaz district in the same province, with no immediate reports of possible casualties.

It is not the first time that Riyadh’s military resorts to such internationally-banned weapons in its deadly military campaign against Yemen.

Yemenis gather around a crater caused by a Saudi airstrike targeting the outskirts of the capital, Sana’a, on December 29, 2015. ©AFP

On January 8, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over Saudi Arabia’s intensifying airstrikes against civilians in Yemen, warning that Riyadh’s use of cluster bombs in the capital, Sana’a, may amount to a “war crime.”

Ban made the comments a day after a civilian was killed in a cluster bomb attack in the Yemeni capital.

Human Rights Watch also confirmed the attack, saying it amounted to “a war crime.”

“The inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions makes such attacks serious violations of the laws of war,” Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement last week.

In May 2015, the New York-based human rights body said Saudi warplanes had targeted civilians and residential areas with cluster bombs in the northern province of Sa’ada.

Saudi Arabia began the military campaign against Yemen in late March 2015 to undermine the Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure.


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