YEMEN: Airstrike on school bus ‘war crime’

A Saudi-led Coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen that killed dozens of children last month is an “apparent war crime,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Sunday. The attack on a bus carrying dozens of schoolboys on a field trip was later revealed to have been carried out by an American-made […]

A Saudi-led Coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen that killed dozens of children last month is an “apparent war crime,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Sunday.
The attack on a bus carrying dozens of schoolboys on a field trip was later revealed to have been carried out by an American-made bomb sold to Saudi Arabia, raising questions about whether the United States bears any moral culpability.
“The Saudi-led coalition’s attack on a bus full of young boys adds to its already gruesome track record of killing civilians at weddings, funerals, hospitals, and schools in Yemen,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“Countries with knowledge of this record that are supplying more bombs to the Saudis will be complicit in future deadly attacks on civilians,” he added.
The rights group, which interviewed witnesses and reviewed videos and photos of the scene, identified 34 people, including 26 children and 4 teachers, who were killed in the August 9 attack. However a Houthi rebel government official in Yemen said 51 people, including 40 children, were killed.
The children, aged six to 11, had been on a much-anticipated field trip marking their graduation from summer school.