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Saudi Arabia commits systematic war crimes in Yemen: Analyst

Sunday, 26 February 2017 2:45 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 26 February 2017 2:45 PM ]

Yemeni children pose for a photo in a camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of the southern city of Ta'izz on January 11, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Five children have lost their lives in an attack, which targeted al-Mokha District of Ta’izz Province in Yemen’s southwest. Two other people were also killed in another Saudi air raid in Dhamar province in central Yemen. The United Nations has warned about the dire humanitarian situation in the impoverished Arab country, as Saudi Arabia presses ahead with its war on Yemen.

A war crimes lawyer believes Saudi Arabia is committing “systematic war crimes” in Yemen, adding that its crimes are "verging on genocide” under the Geneva Conventions, because Riyadh is systematically targeting children.

“First I want to say that because of the Geneva Conventions and the specific protections accorded to children, it is clear that ... in my opinion if a court were to look at this, they may come out with a verdict of genocide,” Alfred Lambremont Webre told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.

The analyst also opined that Saudi Arabia’s “rogue regime” is in a “state of turbulence” itself.

Webre further criticized the international institutions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), for their inaction with regard to Saudi Arabia’s war crimes in Yemen.

According to the analyst, there should be some sort of institution where its members can hold Saudi Arabia to account and start legal proceedings, because certainly there is plenty of evidence that Riyadh is committing war crimes in a systematic way.

Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in a bid to reinstall the country’s former government and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

In a report released on Thursday, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in war-torn Arab country at 12,041.

The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women.

The rights body said the bombings have also wounded 20,001 civilians, including 2,354 children and 1,960 women, while more than four million others have been displaced.

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