Yemen: Children among civilians killed and maimed in cluster bomb 'minefields'

Children and their families returning home in northern Yemen after a year of conflict are at grave risk of serious injury and death from thousands of unexploded cluster bomb submunitions, Amnesty International said, following a 10-day research trip to Sa'da, Hajjah, and Sana'a governorates.

International assistance is urgently needed to clear contaminated areas and countries with influence should urge the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces to stop using cluster munitions, which are internationally banned and inherently indiscriminate.

"Even after hostilities have died down, the lives and livelihoods of civilians, including young children, continue to be on the line in Yemen as they return to de facto minefields. They cannot live in safety until contaminated areas in and around their homes and fields are identified and cleared of deadly cluster bomb submunitions and other unexploded ordnance," said Lama Fakih, Senior Crisis Advisor at Amnesty International.

Even after hostilities have died down, the lives and livelihoods of civilians, including young children, continue to be on the line in Yemen as they return to de facto minefields.

On its most recent mission to northern Yemen, Amnesty International found evidence of US, UK and Brazilian cluster munitions used by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces. The use of cluster bombs is banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, to which the UK is a State Party.

The organization interviewed 30 people, including survivors of cluster bomb submunitions and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) as well as their families, eyewitnesses, demining experts, activists and first responders.

It documented 10 new cases in which 16 civilians were injured or killed by cluster munitions between July 2015 and April 2016. This includes nine children, two of whom were killed. These casualties took place days, weeks, and sometimes months after the bombs were dropped by coalition forces in Yemen.

With a lull in fighting along the Yemeni-Saudi border since a local ceasefire was agreed in March 2016, civilians began returning home and felt safer moving around the governorates of Hajjah and Sa'da. But demining officials, local residents and first responders told Amnesty International they continued to see civilians injured by explosions, with a rise in casualties from unexploded ordnance particularly in areas along the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border including in Midi, Haradh, Hayran, Bakil al-Mir, and Mustabah in Hajjah governorate and al-Safra, Razih, Shada and Baqim in Sa'da governorate.

Many civilians, including children, are now exposed to potentially deadly submunitions and other explosive remnants of war without any knowledge of their presence or the risk they pose. Meanwhile, recent flood waters have moved the submunitions and other unexploded ordnance into areas where civilians do not expect them to be.

Up to this point, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition has not formally confirmed its use of cluster munitions. However, in an interview with CNN on 11 January 2016, the spokesperson of the coalition's military forces, General Ahmed al-Asiri, categorically denied that the coalition had used cluster munitions in attacks anywhere in Yemen other than in one instance, describing the use of air-dropped CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons on a military target in Hajjah in April 2015.

Civilians describe dire need of assistance to clear contaminated areas

Recognizing the serious risk unexploded ordnance presents to the civilian population, Yemen's sole demining agency, the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC), began clearing and detonating the weapons in Sa'da and Hajjah in early April 2016, despite being ill-equipped and trained.

While the full extent of cluster munition contamination is not yet known, in the first three weeks of their work, YEMAC records show its teams working in Sa'da and Hajjah governorates cleared at least 418 cluster bomb submunitions, 810 fuses and artillery remnants, 51 mortars and more than 70 missiles.