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Incident on 5 September 2015 [+] Print this page

Location: a building in Al-Khamseen street, Amanat Al Asimah [+]

Country: Yemen [+]

Violation types: Aerial attack may tantamount to war crimes in accordance with the International Humanitarian Law [+]

Location


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This incident took place in a building in Al-Khamseen street, Amanat Al Asimah, Yemen [+]

Description


According to Mwatana for Human Rights: "Despite the statements issued by the Spokesman of the Arab Allied Forces –Brigadier General Ahmed Aseeri- that all precautionary measures were taken to avoid civilian casualties and to ensure the safety and security of all Yemenis, a sizable number of the coalition’ aerial attacks did target civilian areas and resulted in killing and injury of civilian, damage of homes, civil institutions and infrastructures. These violations may tantamount to war crimes in accordance with the International Humanitarian Law. [...] A Saudi-led Arab coalition airstrike that targeted a building in Al Khamseen street south of the capital Sana’a on 5 September 2015 killed seven civilians, including a woman and a child. The building consists of two stories; the first is occupied by aluminum repair workshop and the second story is the house of the building’s owner. The victims killed by the airstrike were workers in the aluminum workshop, and some family members of the owner of the building. Another person was also wounded in the strike. Mukhtar Al-Somomi (28 years old), a cousin of two people who were killed by the strike. They were working with him in the aluminum workshop, he could not believe what he heard from a caller who phoned him and told him that the workshop was hit. Mukhtar says: “I arrived to the scene nearly one hour after the incident, the situation was scary and painful. Why did they bomb us? We’re not militants or terrorists, we are just workers, working to support our families. No one came to the rescue of the people and save them from under the rubble, neither the state nor anyone else. People were passing in their cars and fleeing despite the screams of the survivors, they were afraid another bomb may fall at the same place.” He added: “When I arrived at the scene, I saw my cousins and some neighbors digging using shovels while they hear the sound of the moans of the wounded. Anyone who might have been alive was going to die under the rubble; die from bleeding, or from suffocation because of the absence of a quick rescue process and the difficulty of removing the victims from under the rubble." Mohammed Al-Somomi (25 years old), a cousin of 2 workers who were killed by the strike, was the first person to arrive at the incident site about half an hour after the strike. Yet, no one had come to rescue the wounded or recover the bodies of the victims until that time. Mohammed said “Idris Al-Somomi was buried under the rubble and we could not get him out until after 6:00 a.m. Also Zakaria Al-Somomi, was still alive when we rushed him to the hospital but unfortunately he died an hour after his arrival to the hospital due to injuries to the back of his head caused by flying rocks resulting from the explosion.” He commented on the incident saying “we did not expect at all that our workplace will be bombed for several reasons: We are not near any military installation, and the closest one to us is Al-Nahdain mountain, which is located west of the targeted area, and is over one kilometer away. And also none of the important political figures lives next to us to say that it might have been a mistake. There are only a few houses beside us. I did not believe what happened, until I saw the disaster with my own eyes.” Mohammed links this incident with another bombing incident, the common connection between them is another civilian victim. He says, “Hours before the bombing of our workplace, an area in Haddah was bombed, I called my relative Ali Abbas, who lives in Al-Khamseen St (fifty street) to come to the house of his uncle, which was bombed by the coalition in Hadda to guard the furniture but he refused and said that he would come in the morning. He did not know that he would be a victim of another bomb while he was asleep.” He continued: in the morning of the day of the incident my relative Ali Abbas’s mom called her sister to express her condolences on the death of her son in the Hadda Area bombing incident, and the next day, her sister called her to express her condolences on the death of her son, Ali Abbas in the bombing incident in Al-Khamseen St (fifty street). These two mothers and families have lost their breadwinners. What a catastrophe that several people from the same family die in a matter of hours and for no reason." [+]

Perpetrator units

Name Other Names Classification
Operation Restoring Hope [+] Arab Coalition
Arab Coalition Forces
Arab Coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen
Gulf Arab coalition
Hope Restoration Operation
Joint Forces
Operation Renewal of Hope
Operation Storm of Resolve
Saudi-led Arab Coalition
Saudi-led Coalition
coalition forces
operations Renewal of Hope
Air Force [+]
Army [+]
Joint Operation [+]
Military [+]
Navy [+]

Sources

List of all sources used to evidence the data in this record Click the "+" symbol next to every data point in the record to see the sources used for that data point.

Publication Date Publisher Publication Title Access Date Archive Link
15 December 2015 Mwatana for Human Rights Blind Air Strikes 09 October 2019