U.N. urged to restore scrutiny of war crimes in Yemen

3/12/2021 7:07

        Activist groups called on the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday to create a new panel of independent experts to collect and preserve evidence of possible
        war crimes by all sides in Yemen's bitter conflict for future prosecution.
        
        Bahrain, Russia and other members of the U.N. Human Rights Council pushed through a vote in October to shut down its war crimes investigations in Yemen, in a stinging defeat for Western states.
        
        Some 60 groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, called in a joint statement for a fresh investigation and accused Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of an "aggressive lobbying campaign" to quash that Geneva-based expert panel set up four years ago.
        
        More than 100,000 people have been killed and 4 million been displaced in the war marked by Saudi-led coalition air strikes as well as shelling and missiles by Iran-aligned Houthi fighters.
        
        The Saudi-led Sunni Muslim coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government from power in the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.