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More pressure needed to hold Riyadh accountable in Yemen: Analyst

Sunday, 02 September 2018 1:29 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 02 September 2018 1:32 PM ]

An analyst believes it is a “huge step forward” for Human Rights Watch (HRW) to denounce as war crime a recent Saudi airstrike on a school bus in Yemen but more pressure is needed to hold Riyadh accountable.

“It is hard to tell whether or not Saudi Arabia will actually be held accountable considering the extensive support that the Saudi regime still receives from Western powers such as the United States and the United Kingdom,” Brecht Jonkers, journalist for Al-Masdar News told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.

“I think it is a very big step already that Human Rights Watch has decided to openly condemn Saudi Arabia and officially call for the ending of weapons to be sold to Saudi Arabia … but if we want the Saudi regime, the Saudi kingdom to be held accountable and to really be brought to justice, then far more pressure needs to be exerted on Saudi Arabia particularly of course through the United Nations but also in the shape of military embargo and possibly economic sanctions as long as this war of aggression against Yemen continues,” he added.

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch denounced the August 9 attack in northwestern Sa’ada province as an apparent war crime and blasted the countries that export arms to Saudi Arabia.