Amid West's Silence, Groups Call for Saudi Arms Embargo to Stem Carnage in Yemen
The flow of weapons to Saudi Arabia over the past year has “facilitated appalling crimes,” according to leading international human rights groups, which argue that the United States and other western nations are thus complicit in the killing of thousands of Yemeni civilians.
To mark the nearly one year since the Saudi-led coalition began bombing Yemen, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are renewing the call for an international arms embargo on Saudi Arabia, while singling out the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France for their “complicity in the unlawful airstrikes.”
Since March 25, 2015, when the Arab state coalition began its air assault, Amnesty estimates that more than 3,000 civilians including 700 children have been killed and at least 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes. The United Nations puts the death toll much higher, estimating as many as 6,200 civilians killed by the coalition fighting.
The anniversary of the bombing campaign falls less than two weeks after perhaps the deadliest attack yet, during which fighter jets bombed a market in Yemen’s northern province of Hajjah, killing about 120 people including more than 20 children.
As Intercept journalist Mohammed Ali Kalfood wrote on Tuesday, after a series of bombings killed roughly 30 people in Brussels, Belgium: “While the horrific terrorist attacks against civilians in Europe receive extensive media coverage, the U.S.-supported bombings of civilians in Yemen get scant attention.”
James Lynch, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International, declared in a statement, “the international community’s response to the conflict in Yemen has been deeply cynical and utterly shameful.”
As Common Dreams previously reported, the U.S.-backed bombing campaign has repeatedly targeted critical civilian infrastructure, including markets, schools, hospitals, power plants, refugee camps, and warehouses storing humanitarian aid.
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