Saudi Jets Attack Yemen’s Sa’ada With Cluster Bombs

Mon Aug 29, 2016 9:24PM
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Yemeni children play on June 15, 2016 in an impoverished part of the capital Sana’a. (AFP)

Five Yemeni children have been killed and several others injured in Saudi Arabia’s latest attack on its southern neighbor.

The children were killed on Monday as Saudi warplanes used clusters bombs in the Sahar district of the country’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.

A woman was also killed as the kingdom’s jets pounded a residential area in the province.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office stressed that using cluster bombs against residential areas in Yemen by the Saudi military is a violation of international law.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein also called for the creation of an independent international body to investigate cases of human rights violations in conflict-ridden Yemen.    

Earlier in May, Human Rights Watch criticized the United States for selling cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia, urging Riyadh to stop using such banned arms that leave behind unexploded sub-munitions and endanger civilians.

Following the Monday cluster bomb attack, the Yemeni army, which is backed by fighters from Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement, released footage of their retaliatory attacks against Saudi troops inside the kingdom.

Such attacks are part of a drive by Houthis and allies to avenge more than 15 months of military aggression by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has pounded Yemen almost daily since March 2015, with internal sources putting the death toll from the military aggression at about 10,000. The offensive was launched to crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement and their allies and restore Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to power.

The Houthi fighters took state matters into their own hands in the wake of Hadi's resignation and escape, which threw Yemen into a state of uncertainty and threatened a total security breakdown in the country, where an al-Qaeda affiliate is present.