Have war crimes been committed in Yemen?

“None have clean hands.”

That was the conclusion of UN human rights investigators who say all parties in the three-year conflict in Yemen may have committed war crimes. 

Their report said the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen are guilty of human rights violations.

Air attacks by the Saudi-Emirati coalition are responsible for causing the most civilian casualties. But Houthi rebels are also blamed for recruiting child soldiers and using sexual abuse as a weapon of war.

The UN experts urged the international community to stop supplying weapons to those involved in the conflict that has killed at least 10,000 people – a figure that is likely far higher.

But do UN reports achieve anything? And will anyone ever be held to account for Yemen’s disaster?

Presenter: Hashem Ahelbarra

Guests:

Hussain Al Bukhaiti – Yemeni journalist

Elisabeth Kendall – senior research fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University

Martha Mundy – retired professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics