Human Rights Watch (HRW) said today that the United States and the United Kingdom “have failed to ensure accountability for the possible violations of international humanitarian law” in their offensive against the Yemeni Houthi militia in the Red Sea.
”By launching new attacks in Yemen without taking measures to adequately support the processes of peace and justice,” these countries “have not given Yemenis any reason to believe that this time they will prioritize rights and international law,” he denounced this Wednesday in a statement.
The Houthi rebels, an Iran-backed Shiite militia that has controlled large areas in Yemen since 2014, have carried out numerous attacks in the past two months in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait against ships they say are linked to Israel. or are heading towards that country.
HRW also accused both the Americans and the British of supporting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in their conflict with Yemeni insurgents from 2015 to today and of “obstruct investigations” later.
According to this organization, both countries have contributed to the war “weapons worth billions of dollars”, as well as “logistical support in training”, which caused “probable war crimes” perpetrated by the Gulf countries and with “the complicity of the United States and the United Kingdom.”
Following the dissolution in 2021 of the group of eminent international and regional experts for Yemen, created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017, neither of the two powers supported the creation of a new investigative mechanism, a decision made , according to the organization “because of pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
The US began carrying out “operations of targeted killings” in Yemen in 2002 against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which They extended at least until 2019 and killed several civiliansincluding 12 people attending a wedding in 2013, a fact that, according to HRW, Americans “failed to recognize, nor did they investigate the death of civilians in that attack”.
