Rights Agencies Warn of Cluster Munition and Displacement

Thursday, 21 May 2015

Rights Agencies Warn of Cluster Munition and Displacement

Local Editor

Humanitarian organizations condemned the use of banned plane-dropped cluster ammunitions by the US-backed Saudi-led aggression against Yemen and warned of the massive Yemeni displacement.

In a new report released on Monday, Human Rights Watch [HRW] recorded violations committed by the US-led Saudi aggression against civilians in Yemen.

Moreover, HRW said about its visit to Saada that, "After over six weeks of airstrikes, the city [Saada] is littered with craters, debris, and destroyed buildings."

"We documented several strikes on residential buildings, and markets without an apparent military objective that have killed and wounded civilians. On May 6, for example, a bomb struck a residential home in Saada, killing 27 members of one family, including 14 children. Bombing has destroyed at least four markets in Saada, making it harder for people to buy food," the report said.

"Further attacks on electricity and water installations as well as food storage centers may have had a military justification, but the short and long-term harm to civilians may have far exceeded any military gain", it further said.

In a parallel notion, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], Adrian Edwards, told journalists in Geneva that an estimated 545,000 people had been displaced, up from 450,000 announced on Friday.

The UN official said the agency's assessments on the ground during the five-day "ceasefire" had "exposed enormous difficulties for thousands of civilians displaced by conflict."

Consequently, the World Food Program had also complained that the "ceasefire" was "not long enough to reach all those in need" and that it had only managed to deliver food to about half of the 738,000 it had aimed to help.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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