An ap­par­ent Saudi-led coali­tion at­tack on a boat car­ry­ing So­mali civil­ians off the coast of Yemen high­lights the need for ac­count­abil­ity on the sec­ond an­niver­sary of the Yemeni armed con­flict, Hu­man Rights Watch said to­day.

Sev­eral wit­nesses re­ported that on March 16, 2017, a he­li­copter fired on the boat, killing at least 32 of the 145 So­mali mi­grants and refugees on board and one Yemeni civil­ian.

An­other 29, in­clud­ing six chil­dren, were wounded, and 10 more re­main miss­ing. Pho­tos of the boat taken the next day show dam­age con­sis­tent with gun­fire from an aer­ial at­tack.

All the par­ties to the con­flict de­nied re­spon­si­bil­ity for the at­tack. Only the Saudi-led coali­tion has mil­i­tary air­craft. The Houthi-Saleh forces do not. So­ma­lia, which sup­ports the coali­tion, called on the coali­tion to in­ves­ti­gate. But the coali­tion has re­peat­edly shown it­self un­able or un­will­ing to cred­i­bly in­ves­ti­gate its own abuses.

“The coali­tion’s ap­par­ent fir­ing on a boat filled with flee­ing refugees is only the lat­est likely war crime in Yemen’s two-year-long war,” said Sarah Leah Whit­son, Mid­dle East di­rec­tor at Hu­man Rights Watch. “Reck­less dis­re­gard for the lives of civil­ians has reached a new level of de­prav­ity.”

One of the boat’s four Yemeni crew mem­bers told Hu­man Rights Watch that the boat was about 50 kilo­me­ters off the coast of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, trav­el­ing away from Yemen, when it was at­tacked.

That evening the cap­tain had told the pas­sen­gers to be quiet as they were tran­sit­ing through “a very dan­ger­ous place,” two peo­ple on­board told Hu­man Rights Watch. Ear­lier in the jour­ney a ves­sel had ap­proached and told the crew to stop the boat, but the boat con­tin­ued.

Four peo­ple aboard the boat said that at about 9 p.m. they saw a he­li­copter re­peat­edly shoot at the boat. A So­mali woman refugee, 25, who was wounded in the at­tack, said, “All of a sud­den, I saw a he­li­copter above us. … They at­tacked abruptly. … When they kept fir­ing at us, those of us who spoke Ara­bic kept say­ing, ‘We are So­ma­lis!’” An­other woman said that she was hit by a frag­ment from an ex­plo­sive weapon. A crew mem­ber and oth­ers said a large naval ship also fired on the boat.

Af­ter the at­tack, the boat docked at Hodeida port at about 4:30 a.m. The head of the fish­ing port, Daoud Fadel, said, “We could­n’t find a place to put the bod­ies, so we had to put them in the place where we store the fish.” An­other wit­ness said that, in ad­di­tion to those who had been taken to nearby hos­pi­tals for treat­ment, about 15 men were wounded from bul­lets or frag­ments dur­ing the at­tack.

Both the Saudi-led coali­tion and the Houthi-Saleh forces de­nied car­ry­ing out the at­tack. The of­fi­cial state news agency of the United Arab Emi­rates re­ported that a UAE mil­i­tary source de­nied that its forces had been in­volved and wel­comed an in­ter­na­tional in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the in­ci­dent.

Coali­tion mem­bers have naval ves­sels pa­trolling ac­cess to the Hodeida coast, while Houthi-Saleh forces main­tain con­trol over the port. The US, which has been car­ry­ing out airstrikes in Yemen against Al-Qaeda in the Ara­bian Penin­sula (AQAP), also de­nied car­ry­ing out the at­tack.

Un­der the laws of war, at­tacks against civil­ians that are de­lib­er­ate or reck­less are war crimes.

Since March 26, 2015, the Saudi Ara­bia-led coali­tion has car­ried out mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, sup­ported by the United States, against Houthi forces and forces loyal to for­mer Pres­i­dent Ali Ab­dul­lah Saleh. The coali­tion has con­ducted nu­mer­ous airstrikes that have un­law­fully struck homes, mar­kets, hos­pi­tals, and schools.

The Houthi-Saleh forces have in­dis­crim­i­nately shelled civil­ian neigh­bor­hoods, re­cruited child sol­diers, and ar­bi­trar­ily de­tained and forcibly dis­ap­peared scores of civil­ians. Since the start of the cur­rent con­flict, at least 4,773 civil­ians had been killed and 8,272 wounded, the ma­jor­ity by coali­tion airstrikes, ac­cord­ing to the United Na­tions hu­man rights of­fice.

Hu­man Rights Watch has doc­u­mented 62 ap­par­ently un­law­ful coali­tion airstrikes, some of which may amount to war crimes, that have killed nearly 900 civil­ians, and doc­u­mented seven in­dis­crim­i­nate at­tacks by Houthi-Saleh forces in Aden and Taizz that killed 139 peo­ple, in­clud­ing at least eight chil­dren. Hu­man Rights Watch has also doc­u­mented the Houthi-Saleh forces use of banned an­tiper­son­nel land­mines and the coali­tion’s use of widely banned clus­ter mu­ni­tions. Both par­ties have blocked or re­stricted crit­i­cal re­lief sup­plies from reach­ing civil­ians.

On March 23, 2017, the UN High Com­mis­sioner for Hu­man Rights called for an in­ter­na­tional, in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion of in­quiry into al­le­ga­tions of vi­o­la­tions of in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights and hu­man­i­tar­ian law by all sides in Yemen, a call re­peat­edly made by na­tional, re­gional, and in­ter­na­tional or­ga­ni­za­tions over the past two years.

The UN Hu­man Rights Coun­cil fell short of es­tab­lish­ing a full stand-alone in­quiry in Sep­tem­ber 2016, but passed a res­o­lu­tion man­dat­ing the UN hu­man rights of­fice to de­ploy ad­di­tional hu­man rights ex­perts to in­ves­ti­gate abuses by all sides. Gov­ern­ments should fully sup­port the of­fice’s ex­panded in­ves­tiga­tive man­date in the ab­sence of a stand­alone in­ter­na­tional in­quiry, Hu­man Rights Watch said.

The Saudi-led coali­tion-ap­pointed Joint In­ci­dents As­sess­ment Team (JIAT) has failed to meet in­ter­na­tional stan­dards. It has ab­solved the coali­tion of re­spon­si­bil­ity in nearly all of the 17 in­ci­dents it has so far in­ves­ti­gated and re­leased find­ings that dif­fered dras­ti­cally from those of the UN and oth­ers.
Al­though the coali­tion has con­ducted wide­spread un­law­ful at­tacks, the United States, United King­dom, and France con­tinue to sell bil­lions of dol­lars of weapons to Saudi Ara­bia. Hu­man Rights Watch was not able to de­ter­mine which coali­tion mem­ber car­ried out the at­tack on the refugee boat, but the US State De­part­ment has ap­proved li­censes for the sale or ser­vic­ing of mil­i­tary he­li­copters to Saudi Ara­bia, the United Arab Emi­rates, Kuwait, and Jor­dan. Gov­ern­ments should sus­pend all weapon sales to Saudi Ara­bia or risk com­plic­ity in fu­ture un­law­ful coali­tion at­tacks, Hu­man Rights Watch said.

“De­spite the grow­ing moun­tain of ev­i­dence of coali­tion abuses, the US, UK, and France seem more fo­cused on sell­ing arms to the Saudis than on their pos­si­ble com­plic­ity in coali­tion war crimes,” Whit­son said. “Af­ter two years of un­law­ful at­tacks on civil­ians and civil­ian struc­tures, Saudi Ara­bi­a’s al­lies should re­con­sider their sup­port and use their lever­age with Riyadh to end the vi­o­la­tions.”