UPDATE - Yemen coalition likely committed war crimes: Experts

UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - A UN-mandated probe said Wednesday it had "reasonable grounds" to believe that groups involved in Yemen's bloody six-year conflict have committed human rights atrocities including war crimes.

All parties continue to show no regard for international law or the lives, dignity, and rights of people in Yemen, according to the third report of the Group of Eminent International (GEE) and Regional Experts on Yemen.

The group underlined that the governments of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Southern Transitional Council were responsible for human rights violations that include killings, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence.

Some in the current Yemeni government and coalition -- in particular, Saudi Arabia and the UAE -- as well as the Southern Transitional Council have committed "acts that may amount to war crimes."

These include the "murder of civilians, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, outrages upon personal dignity, denial of fair trial, and enlisting children under the age of 15 or using them to participate actively in hostilities."

"Individuals in the coalition, in particular Saudi Arabia, may have conducted airstrikes in violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, acts that may amount to war crimes," said the group.

Yemen has been devastated by a conflict that escalated in March 2015 after Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa and forced President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee the country.

The report recommended that the conflicting parties "agree to a comprehensive cessation of hostilities and achieve a sustainable and inclusive peace, through a peace process which includes the full involvement of women, youth and minority groups."

It called for "justice for all victims of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

Ardi Imseis, a Canadian law professor and member of the GEE noted that Yemen remains a "collective failure that requires the international community to bear its share of the collective responsibility,

"And therefore, we reiterate our call for states to stop transferring arms to parties to the conflict, also call upon the Security Council to refer the situation in Yemen, the International Criminal Court."

Though the group was not mandated to collect the death toll in the war, Imseis said it had received reports that more than 100,000 combatants and non-combatants had been killed.

The group of experts released its third report, titled Yemen: A Pandemic of Impunity in a Tortured Land, on human rights in the war-torn country, covering developments from July 2019 to June 2020.

It will present the report to the Human Rights Council in its 45th session on Sept. 29.

"In the report we will present the Human Rights Council, we identify a range of human rights and humanitarian law violations," said Melissa Parke, an Australian human rights expert in the group.

"These include airstrikes by the Coalition in support of the Government of Yemen, which appear to have been undertaken without proper regard to principles of distinction proportionality and precaution."

Violence has flared between government forces and the STC since the UAE-backed group declared self-rule in Aden and other southern provinces in April.

The Riyadh agreement was signed between the government and STC in November following one month of fighting and included 29 terms to address the political, social, economic and security situation in Yemen's southern provinces.

Both parties, however, blamed each other for not abiding by the agreement.