Yemen government and separatists to end power struggle

[Anthea]

More than 100 dead
in Yemen strike

More than 100 people have died in Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition launched a series of air strikes on a detention centre, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

The ICRC said that at least 40 survivors were being treated after the attack on Sunday in the city of Dhamar.

Local residents reported hearing six air strikes during the night.

The Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen's government, said its attack destroyed a drone and missile site.

The Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement, which is fighting in opposition to the government and Saudi-led coalition, said the strikes had hit a facility it was using as a prison. The ICRC said it had visited detainees at the location before.

Franz Rauchenstein, the head of delegation for the ICRC in Yemen, said the organisation was collecting bodies from the site and described the chances of finding more survivors as "very low".

Yemen has been at war since 2015, when President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and his cabinet were forced to flee the capital Sanaa by the Houthis. Saudi Arabia backs President Hadi, and has led a coalition of regional countries in air strikes against the rebels.

The coalition launches air strikes almost every day, while the Houthis often fire missiles into Saudi Arabia.

The civil war has triggered the world's worst humanitarian disaster, with 80% of the population - more than 24 million people - requiring humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.

More than 70,000 people are believed to have died since 2016 as a result of the conflict, according to UN estimates

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49544559

[Anthea]

West may be held
responsible for Yemen crimes

The UN experts investigated a coalition air strike on a bus carrying children in August 2018

The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there, UN experts say.

A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.

The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs the Houthi rebels.

The experts say both sides continue to commit violations with impunity.

Their report documents air strikes on civilian infrastructure, indiscriminate shelling, snipers, landmines, as well as arbitrary killings and detention, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and the impeding of access to humanitarian aid in the midst of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.

The Group of International and Regional Eminent Experts on Yemen conducted 600 interviews with victims and witnesses, and examined documentary and open-source material, for their second report for the UN Human Rights Council.

It says they found reasonable grounds to believe Yemen's government and the Saudi-led coalition, as well as the Houthis, had enjoyed a "pervasive lack of accountability" for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

The experts investigated a number of coalition air strikes on rebel-held areas in which civilians were killed. Such strikes raised concerns about the identification of military objectives and respect for the principles of proportionality and precautions in attack, they say. If there were breaches of the latter, which the experts consider highly likely, they would amount to serious violations of international law.

The experts also found reasonable grounds to believe that the Houthis were responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law for having launched indiscriminate attacks resulting in the death or injury of civilians and, in some cases, by directing attacks against civilians.

All parties may also have used starvation as a method of warfare.

The experts call for the immediate cessation of all acts of violence committed against civilians and urge other states to refrain from providing weapons.

"States are obliged to take all reasonable measures to ensure respect for international humanitarian law by other states. Furthermore, the Arms Trade Treaty, to which France and the United Kingdom are parties, prohibits the authorization of arms transfers with the knowledge that these would be used to commit war crimes," they note.

"The legality of arms transfers by France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other states remains questionable, and is the subject of various domestic court proceedings," they add.

Melissa Parke, an Australian member of the Group of Experts, told reporters in Geneva: "It is clear that the continued supply of weapons to parties to the conflict is perpetuating the conflict and prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people."

Where possible, the experts have identified "individuals who may be responsible for international crimes" and submitted a confidential list of their names to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

There was no response to the report from the coalition, the Yemeni government or the Houthis. But they have all previously denied carrying out war crimes.

The UK Foreign Office has not commented on the report. But ministers have said in the past they cannot determine whether any civilian deaths have been the result of British bombs or planes because the coalition does not track their use.

The US has argued against halting arms sales or assistance to the coalition, saying that continuing them is more likely to help limit civilian casualties.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle ... ting-story

[Anthea]

100,000 dead in Yemen war

Data project says 20,000 killed this year and 12,000 civilians among total since 2015. Plus countless thousands of innocent animals and huge environmental damage

The death toll in Yemen’s war since 2015 has reached 100,000, according to a highly regarded database project that tracks the conflict.

The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled), which tracks confirmed fatalities in the conflict and is seen as reliable, said the figure included 12,000 civilian deaths in directly targeted attacks. It said 20,000 people had been reported killed this year, making it the second deadliest year of the war after 2018.

The conflict in the Arab world’s poorest nation began in 2014 with the takeover of northern and central Yemen by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, who drove out the internationally recognised government from the capital, Sana’a.

In March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition launched an air campaign to prevent the rebels from overrunning the country’s south. The Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, while the Houthis have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and have targeted vessels in the Red Sea.

Acled, in collaboration with the Yemen Data Project, tracks reports from multiple sources in an attempt to cross-check claims and provide a reliable minimum tally of deaths directly attributable to violence.

The group noted a decline in “conflict events” since March, primarily driven by a drop in shelling and airstrikes, although it said the number of battles had not decreased.

April was the most lethal month of this year to date, with more than 2,500 reported fatalities, compared with 1,700 in September. The third quarter of 2019 had the lowest number of reported fatalities since the end of 2017, but the number of civilian casualties rose from the previous quarter, Acled said.

The most violent provinces were Taiz, Hodeida and Jawf, with more than 10,000 people reported killed in each of the regions since 2015.

Acled said direct targeting by the Saudi-led coalition and its allies had been responsible for more than 8,000 civilian deaths since 2015.

The data covers everything from airstrikes, shelling and ground battles between the various forces to militant bombings and violence at protests. The numbers do not include people who have died in humanitarian disasters caused by the war, particularly starvation. Other sources have provided higher estimates of the death toll.

Acled receives funding from the US state department and the Dutch foreign ministry.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... hes-100000

[Anthea]

Yemen ends
power struggle

Yemen’s Saudi-backed government and southern separatists signed an agreement on Tuesday to end a power struggle in the south of Yemen that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince hailed as a step towards a wider political solution to end the multifaceted conflict

The stand-off had opened a new front in the more than four-year-old war and fractured a Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi movement that ousted the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi from the capital, Sanaa, in the north in late 2014.

Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Yemen told reporters that the pact, reached after more than a month of indirect talks in the kingdom, would see the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) join a new cabinet along with other southerners and all armed forces would be placed under government control.

“This agreement will open, God willing, broader talks between Yemeni parties to reach a political solution and end the war,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a televised signing ceremony in Riyadh.

U.S. President Donald Trump praised the agreement on Twitter: “A very good start! Please all work hard to get a final deal.”

Riyadh has been trying to resolve the stand-off to refocus the coalition on fighting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement on its southern border.

Separatist forces, supported by Riyadh’s main coalition partner the United Arab Emirates, are part of the Sunni Muslim alliance that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 against the Houthis who hold Sanaa and most big urban centres.

But the STC, which seeks self-rule in the south and a say in Yemen’s future, turned on Hadi’s government in August, seizing its interim seat in the southern port of Aden and trying to extend its reach in the south.

The deal, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, calls for the formation of a new cabinet of no more than 24 ministers within 30 days that would have equal representation for northerners and southerners. STC would join any political talks to end the war.

Military and security forces from both sides, including tens of thousands of UAE-backed STC forces, would be placed under the defence and interior ministries.

To pave the way for the deal, Emirati forces last month left Aden for home, handing control of the port city and other southern areas to Saudi Arabia.

United Nations envoy Martin Griffiths, who is trying to restart talks to end a war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine, said the deal was an important step in peace efforts.

“Listening to southern stakeholders is important to the political efforts to achieve peace in the country,” he said in a tweet.

The ceremony was attended by the UAE’s de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, along with Hadi and STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi.

The Aden crisis exposed a rift between Saudi Arabia and its main Arab ally the UAE, which started reducing its presence in Yemen in June as Western allies, including some that provide the coalition with arms and intelligence, pressed for an end to a war that has killed tens of thousands.

April Longley of think-tank International Crisis Group said the agreement could be positive but it was too early to tell.

“In a best-case scenario, it will put the lid on violence and open the way to more inclusive Yemeni negotiations in which southern separatists, who are an important component on the ground, are also present,” she said.

Reporting by Marwa Rashad; writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous, Angus MacSwan and Giles Elgood

Link to Article - Photos:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-yemen ... Y?rpc=401&