\n The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen acknowledged Thursday \"shortcomings\" in two out of eight cases it has investigated of UN-condemned air strikes on civilian targets in the country.\n<\/p>\n
\n A 14-member investigative team -- made up of coalition states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Yemen -- probed claims of attacks on a residential area, hospitals, markets, a wedding and World Food Programme aid trucks.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We found shortcomings in two cases while the rest were in line with international humanitarian law,\" the team's Bahraini spokesman, Mansur al-Mansur, told a briefing in Riyadh.\n<\/p>\n
\n They found that the coalition, which launched an air war on Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen in March 2015, guilty of \"mistakenly\" hitting a residential compound in the Red Sea port city of Mokha after it had received \"imprecise intelligence information\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Human Rights Watch condemned as an \"apparent war crime\" the raid which it said killed at least 65 civilians in July last year.\n<\/p>\n
\n The investigative team is calling on families of victims to apply for compensation by contacting Yemen's Saudi-backed government, Mansur said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The team also held the coalition responsible for air strikes on Haydan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada.\n<\/p>\n
\n The rebels were using the hospital as a hideout, which is \"a breach of international humanitarian law\", said Mansur.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, the coalition should have warned MSF officials before targeting the building, he said. No deaths had been reported in these strikes.\n<\/p>\n
\n The team cleared the coalition of wrongdoing in the remaining six cases, including raids last year on a delivery by WFP trucks that had not coordinated with the coalition.\n<\/p>\n
\n The trucks were also not marked to show that they belonged to an international aid organisation, according to Mansur.\n<\/p>\n
\n The 16-month-old war in Yemen has killed some 6,400 people and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country, the United Nations says.\n<\/p>\n
\n Saudi Arabia reacted angrily to a decision in June to blacklist the coalition after a UN report found the coalition responsible for 60 percent of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen last year.\n<\/p>\n
\n UN chief Ban Ki-moon accused Saudi Arabia of threatening to cut off funding to UN aid programmes over the blacklist, a charge denied by Riyadh.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Ban: 'Strong concerns' remain -\n<\/p>\n
\n Late last month, the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations, Abdullah al-Mouallimi, outlined a series of measures the coalition is taking to avoid civilian casualties in Yemen, in a letter to Ban.\n<\/p>\n
\n The coalition is in \"direct dialogue\" with humanitarian organisations, including MSF, to guarantee protection of medical facilities, the letter said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mouallimi also provided Ban with details of steps taken to designate targets and ensure they have \"identifiable military\" aims.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Tuesday, Ban reported to the UN Security Council on his controversial decision to temporarily remove the coalition from the UN list of shame, a move that sparked an outcry from human rights groups.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I still have very strong concerns about the protection of Yemeni children,\" Ban said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ban said he had received information on the steps taken by the coalition but that these fell short and \"the content of the (UN) report (on children's deaths) stands\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen acknowledged Thursday \"shortcomings\" in two out of eight cases it has investigated of UN-condemned air strikes on civilian targets in the country. A 14-member investigative team -- made up of coalition states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Yemen -- probed claims […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-28675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n