Saudi-led coalition dropped over 3 million cluster bombs on Yemen since 2015, says official

The director general of the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC) says the Saudi-led military coalition has dropped more than 3 million cluster bombs on Yemen since the beginning of the devastating war in March 2015.

Speaking at a ceremony in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on the occasion of the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, Brigadier General Ali Safra said cluster munitions have been collected in 15 provinces and 70 districts, stressing that the Yemenis have detected 15 types of them used in air raids.

Safra explained that there have been 42 cluster bomb casualties across Yemen in the month of March and roughly 220 victims in the western coastal province of Hudaydah since Saudi-backed mercenaries withdrew from it last November.

He added that as of March 30, 2022, the civilian death toll as a result of the coalition’s use of cluster bombs amounted to 3,921, including 119 children and 39 women, while 2,884 civilians have been wounded, including 257 children and 76 women.

Four children killed, two injured as cluster bomb explodes in Yemen’s Ma’rib

The explosion of a cluster bomb dropped earlier by the Saudi-led coalition has killed four children and injured two others in the central Yemeni province of Ma’rib.

The YEMAC head also lambasted attempts by certain international organizations to underreport the number of cluster bomb victims in Yemen, stating that such ploys are meant to vindicate the Saudi-led coalition and distort facts.

Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses the humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action.

119 violations of Hudaydah truce by coalition in 24 hours

Furthermore, the Saudi-led military coalition’s soldiers and their mercenaries have breached a truce deal for Hudaydah 119 times in the last 24 hours.

Citing an unnamed source in Yemen’s Liaison and Coordination Officers Operations Room, the official Saba news agency reported that the violations included spying flights over various regions, including Hays neighborhoods, as well as several counts of artillery shelling and shooting incidents.

Iran welcomes any initiative aimed at full removal of siege, political settlement of Yemen crisis: FM spokesman

The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry says Tehran welcomes any initiative aimed at full removal of the brutal siege imposed on Yemen.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states.

The objective was to bring back to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well short of all of its goals, despite killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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