August has been the bloodiest month this year for civilians in Yemen, with 300 children killed among almost 1000 civilian casualties. This is due to a combination of the warring parties’ reckless disregard for civilian lives and the failure of their political backers to offer any action to prevent the carnage, Oxfam said today.
The grim warning comes as the first talks in two years take place in Geneva to try to secure peace between the Saudi-backed forces and Houthi rebels.
Reports collated by the UN’s civilian impact monitoring department show in the first nine days of August there were more than 450 civilian casualties, including 131 children. By 31 August, 981 civilians had been killed or injured, including more than 300 children.
Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s Country Director in Yemen, said, it was likely that these reports, gleaned from open sources, were not capturing all civilian casualties.
“Yemen is now a free-fire zone where people gathering for weddings, burying their loved ones or going to market are risking their lives,” Mr Siddiquey said. “The suffering of the people of Yemen is an affront to our shared humanity and a failure of powerful countries to uphold any sense of the values they are fond of espousing.
“It is a shameful chapter of diplomatic double speak and downright hypocrisy. How many more children will be killed before the backers of this war will face up to their complicity? Potential war crimes are being committed regularly. The perpetrators and those who are actively involved need to be brought to account. The carnage has to end.”
Ending the killing of civilians needs to be a priority for all parties and communities in Yemen. Today’s talks in Geneva offer them an opportunity to draw a line in the sand and stop the attacks on civilians.
Despite assurances that there was a ‘pause’ in the fighting around the port city of Hudaydah, the beginning of August saw deadly mortar attacks on a busy market killing 41 civilians, including six children and four women, and injuring another 111 civilians. There was also a mortar attack on a hospital in the city causing many civilian casualties.
On 9 August, a market and a bus full of school children was bombed killing 46 people and leaving 100 casualties. Most of the dead were boys under the age of 13 years old. Later in the month, at least 22 children and four women were killed by an airstrike as they fled a previous attack the day before.
The UN civilian impact monitoring reports list numerous other attacks and makes for grisly reading.
There appears to be no let-up in the fighting, which continues towards the south of Hudaydah. There is fighting in residential neighbourhoods in the city, air strikes, mounting civilian casualties and people trapped inside the city unable to flee or get medical assistance.
Aid agencies are finding it difficult to help people because of the fighting and blocked roads. Damage to water and sanitation infrastructure in Hudaydah and other parts of the country is denying thousands of people access to water, and increasing the threat of a third cholera wave. While the focus is on Hudyadah, fighting is also reported in other parts of the country.
Oxfam has said all warring parties have committed, and continue to commit, violations of the rules of war. According to the UN, between 26 March 2015 and 9 August 2018, just under three years, there were a total of 17,062 civilian casualties. The majority of these casualties, 10,471, were as a result of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes.
Meanwhile, the Houthis and other armed groups continue their stranglehold in Taiz and other areas where street fighting and the use of landmines is leading to civilian casualties, and lack of access means people are denied humanitarian assistance.
“Yemen is on the verge of collapse. The fighting has to end and the country put on the road to peace. The talks due to start in Geneva this week are welcome. But the killings have to stop,” Mr Siddiquey said
For interviews with Oxfam spokespeople in Yemen or Australia, please contact Dylan Quinnell on 0450 668 350 or dylanq@oxfam.org.au
Donate to Oxfam’s emergency responses in Yemen and around the world at: www.oxfam.org.au/donate
Notes to editors
The figures collated by the UN’s civilian impact monitoring department come from open sources and have not been verified. They are collected on a daily basis and shared with UN agencies and NGOs.
A recent joint UN Development Programme Early Recovery Assessment showed how life has deteriorated for people across the board in past three years of the conflict. People are becoming poorer, many have lost incomes and are reliant on casual labour or aid, many cannot afford to buy food and face difficulties accessing food, water, health and education.
Last week’s UN Group of Experts report shows a pattern of violations and potential war crimes committed against civilians by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and by the Houthis over the past three years, including a punishing air and naval blockade, attacks on residential areas, schools and medical facilities, and arbitrary arrests.
Oxfam’s response: Since July 2015 Oxfam has reached more than 3 million people in nine governorates of Yemen with water and sanitation services – including providing water by truck, repairing water systems, delivering filters and jerry cans, as well as building toilets – and also providing cash assistance and food vouchers.
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