Unlawful Air Strikes on Yemen

Unlawful Air Strikes on Yemen

• There is no UN mandate, nor any other legal basis for the air strikes on the poorest and weakest nation in the region
• He said Saudi Arabia was conducting up to 70% of the airstrikes, with the United Arab Emirates contributing the bulk of the rest. Emirati officials also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
• At least 1,244 people have died and an additional 5,044 were injured since March 19, the WHO said.

Cluster munitions are banned by 116 countries for high civilian casualty tolls

The U.S., Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have not signed the treaty, although U.S. policy bars exporting the bombs to countries that use them in civilian areas.

While the CBU-105 is banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, its use is permitted under existing US policy and its export is permitted under existing US export restrictions on cluster munitions.

Yemen under attack

According to a data sheet issued by the Textron Systems Corporation, the CBU-105 disperses 10 BLU-108 canisters that each subsequently release four submunitions that sense, classify, and engage a target such as an armored vehicle, and are equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation features. The submunitions of the Sensor Fuzed Weapon explode above the ground and project an explosively formed jet of metal and fragmentation downward.

Many cluster munitions carry a cache of hundreds and even thousands of smaller submunitions, which in many cases do not explode immediately and become effective land mines.

Unexploded BLU-97 submunitions present in a district of Sa’adah Governorate near the border of Yemen and Saudi Arabia in July 2013. Photo courtesy of the Executive Committee Office of the Houthi Administration.

In-discriminated Attack

qRemnants of BLU 108 canisters, fired from a CBU 105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, in the al-Safraa area of Yemen’s Sadaa province.

qidentified the items as BLU-108 canisters from the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon, which is manufactured by the Textron Systems Corporation and supplied to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by the US in recent years.

qWith two different delivery methods implied — one dropped by an aircraft and the other fired from a large artillery piece or rocket – it would seem to have been beyond the military capabilities of the Houthi rebels to use these cluster munitions.

In August 2013, the US Department of Defense concluded a contract for the manufacture of 1,300 CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons for Saudi Arabia by Textron. The contract stipulated that delivery of the weapons should be completed by December 2015. Human Rights Watch does not know when deliveries began, or if they have finished.Food and material prices has increased or doubled, and many factories closed due to the absence of fuel.

MORAL DUTY

• Costa Rica condemned the use of cluster munitions in Yemen in a May 5 message issued in its capacity as president of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The statement reminded all states parties of their 2010 Vientiane Declaration commitment to “raise their voices and publicly condemn the use of these unacceptable weapons.
• “The International Community MUST make a firm stand against such Inhumane and Degrading Treatment of the People of Yemen
• Collective efforts MUST be made to STOP the Air Strikes and Blockade against the Yemen Immediately. The Torture and Collective Punishment of the People of Yemen MUST STOP immediately