YEMEN Press Agency

Yemen Media Union calls for investigation into aerial attack on president’s house

SANAA, July 6 (YPA) – The Yemeni Media Union has called for the forming of an international commission of inquiry to investigate into the aerial attack on the Union president and his family, launched by Saudi-led coalition warplanes, according to a statement obtained by Yemen Press Agency.

On May 16, 2019, the Saudi-led coalition committed a heinous crime that targeted the house of the Yemeni Media Union’s president in al-Raqas neighborhood in Sana’a in order to kill the Union President Abdullah Ali al-Sabri and exterminate his family members, the statment read.

The air raid left 70 people dead and wounded, including some members of al-Sabri’s family: his mother and two of his sons, Louay and Hassan, while Abdullah al-Sabri was wounded along with his father.

The attack on the house of al- Sabri coincided with an air strike on the Yemeni Ministry of Information. This criminal act sends a massage through its military aircraft that the Saudis are seeking to shut down the voices and symbols of the national media against the policy of mass murder committed by the Saudi-led coalition against Yemeni civilians for more than four years.

The Yemeni Media Union confirmed that the Saudi-led coalition has perpetrated this crime in a premeditated way, and in apparent violation of the rules and morals of war, which are commonly accepted among nations.

In addition to this comes the fact that this targeting comes in the context of a broad policy pursued deliberately by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, with no regard to innocent civilians in general.

Therefore, the Union stressed the need for establishing an international commission of inquiry within the framework of the relevant UN mechanisms, in order to investigate into this heinous crime and to give effect to the rules of international accountability in this regard, as well as to ensure that the criminals do not escape punishment.

The Union called upon the various human rights and civil bodies working in the field of freedom of opinion and expression, to support the Yemeni media professionals and endorse its request for the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into the unprecedented crime against journalists

The Union noted that the Coalition has already committed several crimes against Yemeni media and media organizations and is working through a policy of systematic disinformation to disavow them.

E.M