After six unremitting years of armed conflict, all parties continue to show no regard for international law or the lives, dignity, and rights of people in Yemen, according to the third report of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen.
The Group of Experts has released its third report, titled ‘Yemen: A Pandemic of Impunity in a Tortured Land’ on the situation of human rights in Yemen, covering the period from July 2019 to June 2020, the official version of which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in its 45th session, on 29 September 2020. The report investigated a number of incidents during the period covered, and also took a longer temporal scope, going back to as early as the beginning of the conflict in 2014, when deemed necessary for investigations and establishing facts for some categories of the investigated violations.
In its report, the Group of Experts has established that all parties to the conflict have continued to commit a range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, noting a consistent pattern of harm to civilians that not only occurs in the context of hostilities, but also away from the front lines.
The Group of Experts stressed that there are no clean hands in this conflict. The responsibility for violations rests with all parties to the conflict. In its findings, the report concluded that violations have been committed by the Government of Yemen, the Houthis, the Southern Transitional Council, as well as members of the Coalition, which is led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The verified human rights violations include arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, gender-based violence, including sexual violence, torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the recruitment and use in hostilities of children, the denial of fair trial rights, violations of fundamental freedoms, and economic, social and cultural rights.
Moreover, the Group of Experts concluded that parties were responsible for other violations of international humanitarian law, in particular the murder of civilians, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, outrages upon personal dignity, denial of fair trial, and enlisting children under the age of 15 or using them to participate actively in hostilities, that may amount to war crimes.
“Yemen remains a tortured land, with its people ravaged in ways that should shock the conscience of humanity,” said Kamel Jendoubi, the Chairperson of the Group of Experts.
The Group of Experts reiterated the urgency for the parties to reach a comprehensive ceasefire and achieve sustainable and inclusive peace, urging the parties to immediately take steps to cease the ongoing violations and prevent new ones. The Group also stressed that all measures should be taken, by the parties as well as by the international community, to ensure accountability for perpetrators of the violations committed in Yemen, and the realization of victims’ rights to reparations.
Read the report: Yemen: A Pandemic of Impunity in a Tortured Land.
Original source: OHCHR
