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Report: US-Made Bomb Killed Six Yemeni Civilians, Including Three Children, in June Attack – Eoin Higgins (09/27/2019)

U.S. made bombs killed six Yemeni civilians on June 28, including three children, in the Ta’iz governate, according to a Wednesday report from Amnesty International. 

The attacks were part of the Saudi Arabia-led war on Yemen, which has killed thousands and triggered what has been described as the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis.

“It is unfathomable and unconscionable that the U.S.A. continues to feed the conveyor belt of arms flowing into Yemen’s devastating conflict,” Amnesty’s Rasha Mohamed said in a statement.

“Despite the slew of evidence that the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition has time and again committed serious violations of international law, including possible war crimes,” Mohamed continued, “the U.S.A. and other arms-supplying countries such as the U.K. and France remain unmoved by the pain and chaos their arms are wreaking on the civilian population.”

Survivors told a harrowing tale of the attack’s aftermath.

“We buried them the same day because they had turned into severed limbs,” said a family member of the victims. “There were no corpses left to examine. The flesh of this person was mixed with that person. They were wrapped up [with blankets] and taken away.”

U.S. support for the Saudi war has been heavily criticized by progressives and some lawmakers. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in March, led a bipartisan and bicameral group of lawmakers to approve a resolution ending U.S. support for the “humanitarian and a strategic disaster.” The bill was vetoed by President Donald Trump. 

Amnesty’s Mohamed said that there is no longer an excuse for inaction by the countries supplying weapons to the war.

“Arms-supplying states cannot bury their heads in the sand and pretend they do not know of the risks associated with arms transfers to parties to this conflict who have been systematically violating international humanitarian law,” said Mohamed. “Intentionally directing attacks against civilians or civilian objects, disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians are war crimes.”

As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, the Amnesty report comes on the heels of a a Saudi strike that killed 16 Yemenis, including seven children, were killed in a strike.

“Children should not be victims of this conflict,” Save the Children in Yemen country director Tamer Kirolos told Middle East Eye.