Yemen: Cluster Munition Rockets Kill, Injure Dozens | WPN World People News

Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces appear to have used cluster munition rockets in at least seven attacks in Yemen’s northwestern Hajja governorate, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, Human Rights Watch said on August 26. The attacks were carried out between late April and mid-July 2015.

Four members of the Hayash family who were injured in a cluster munition attack on al-Qufl village in mid-July.

Cluster munitions caused civilian casualties both during the attacks, which may have been targeting Houthi fighters, and afterward, when civilians picked up unexploded submunitions that detonated. Coalition forces should immediately stop using cluster munitions due to the inevitable harm they cause to civilians, Human Rights Watch said. The United Nations Human Rights Council should create a commission of inquiry to investigate alleged serious laws-of-war violations by all parties to the armed conflict in Yemen since September 2014.

“The loss of civilian life in Hajja shows why most countries have made a commitment never to use cluster munitions,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher. “These weapons not only kill or injure people at the time of attack, but the unexploded submunitions go on killing long afterward.”

Since March 26, a coalition of nine Arab countries has carried out a military campaign against the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah. The Houthis, a Shia armed group from northern Yemen, took control of large parts of the country and ousted President Abu Mansur Hadi earlier in 2015.

In July, Human Rights Watch visited four of the seven attack sites, all in the Haradh and Hayran districts of Hajja governorate. At each of them, Human Rights Watch found unexploded submunitions or remnants of cluster munition rockets. Human Rights Watch also spoke to local residents who witnessed the attacks, and reviewed photographs of cluster munition remnants, including unexploded submunitions, that they provided. The photographs showed unexploded submunitions from two sites that Human Rights Watch did not visit.

Several of the attacks took place in or near areas with concentrations of civilians, indicating that the rocket attacks themselves may have been unlawfully indiscriminate in violation of the laws of war. Local residents named 13 people, including 3 children, who were killed as well as 22 people who were wounded in the seven attacks. They also identified three people who were injured when unexploded submunitions detonated after being handled. In several attacks, residents said, the number of killed and wounded was higher, but that they did not know the names of the other victims. Human Rights Watch does not know whether any Houthi fighters were killed or injured in the attacks.

Human Rights Watch found unexploded submunitions scattered about in fields normally used for agriculture and grazing. Because of the unexploded submunitions, these areas have become too hazardous to use, threatening the livelihoods of local farmers and adding to food insecurity.

Based on examination of remnants, Human Rights Watch identified the weapons used in all seven attacks as United States-made, ground-launched M26 cluster munition rockets. The M26 is delivered by the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), which carries 12 rockets, or the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which carries 6 rockets, to a range of 10 to 32 kilometers.

Each M26 rocket contains 644 M77 Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) submunitions that are dispersed over a 200-by-100 meter area. A volley of six rockets releases 3,864 submunitions over an area with a one-kilometer radius.

The M77 submunitions have a significant failure rate, up to 23 percent in US military testing, which means that unexploded bomblets remain in the area, posing a serious hazard until they are located and safely cleared. Several residents described or showed Human Rights Watch remnants of the weapons, including their distinctive white nylon stabilization ribbons, which often remain after the submunition has exploded.

Although the evidence is not definitive, several factors indicate that the Saudi-led coalition carried out the seven attacks, Human Rights Watch said. Coalition members Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates all possess M26 rockets and their launchers, though there is no authoritative publicly available information that Saudi Arabia or Yemen do. Media reports suggest that Egyptian and Emirati forces might be deployed in Saudi Arabia, but Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm this.

The attack sites are between 4 and 19 kilometers from the Saudi-Yemeni border, within range of attack by forces located in Saudi Arabia. One Yemeni in a village 20 kilometers from the border said he saw rockets coming from the direction of the border.

The rockets struck in Houthi-controlled territory, at least three in areas that Houthi forces had used as bases or to launch attacks against Saudi territory and that would be likely targets for coalition forces. A Saudi reporter shared on social media a photograph of a failed M26 rocket containing M77 DPICM submunitions that he said he took in Saudi Arabia’s adjacent Jizan province, claiming that Houthi forces launched it. The photograph shows, however, that part of the rocket’s propulsion section is missing, indicating that the rocket misfired after being launched. It is therefore not possible to conclude the target of this rocket based on the location alone.

Saudi authorities have not responded to an August 18 written request from Human Rights Watch to clarify responsibility for the attacks.

Local Yemeni residents told Human Rights Watch that they had heard of similar cluster munition rocket attacks in other locations in northern Yemen, but Human Rights Watch has not been able to investigate these reports due to ongoing fighting. A photograph shared on social media on July 2 that accompanying text said was taken in the district of Razeh in Saada governorate showed a child holding two unexploded M77 DPICM submunitions. The photograph suggests that M26 cluster munition rockets might have been used there as well.

Human Rights Watch has previously identified three other types of cluster munitions used in attacks apparently by coalition forces in Yemen in 2015: US-made CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons, rockets or projectiles containing “ZP-39” DPICM submunitions, and CBU-87 cluster bombs containing BLU-97 submunitions. A US Defense Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, reportedly told U.S. News and World Report that “the U.S. is aware that Saudi Arabia has used cluster munitions in Yemen.”

Neither Yemen, Saudi Arabia, nor any of the other coalition states are party to the 2008 international treaty banning cluster munitions. A total of 94 countries are parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions and another 23 have signed but have not yet ratified the convention. Human Rights Watch is a co-founder of the Cluster Munition Coalition and serves as its chair.

“Cluster munitions are adding to the terrible civilian toll in Yemen’s conflict,” Solvang said. “Coalition forces should immediately stop using these weapons and join the treaty banning them.”

Source: Human Rights Watch