“Euro-Med”: The crime of US bombing of migrant detention center requires activation of legal accountability paths

GENEVA, April 29 (YPA) – The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stated that the US military’s targeting of a migrant detention center in Yemen, killing and wounding dozens of them, represents a dangerous escalation and a clear violation of international humanitarian law. It may amount to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The relevant UN bodies called for establishing an independent international commission of inquiry with a full mandate and dispatching it to Yemen. Its tasks would include documenting violations, conducting field investigations, and determining individual and collective legal responsibilities for the attack on the migrant detention center in Saada province.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor emphasized that the nature of the violations committed and the severity of the resulting human losses require the activation of accountability processes at all levels, including support for initiating judicial proceedings under the principle of universal jurisdiction, to ensure that those responsible are held accountable and do not escape punishment.

The Monitor’s review of video documentation of the first moments following the attack revealed that the building where the migrants were being held, which consisted of cement walls and a tin roof, was almost completely destroyed.

It stressed that the absence of any information on the US military taking documented measures to minimize civilian casualties, as in previous incidents, reinforces suspicions of a serious breach of its obligations under international humanitarian law, particularly with regard to the principles of distinguishing between military and civilian targets, proportionality between casualties and targets, and the need to take all feasible precautions to avoid harming civilians.

YPA