Abdu and Marwan, their father was Mohammed Nasser Thuknah. These two boys were targeted along with their entire family in Bakil Almir, Hajjah in an area bordering Saudi Arabia.

12 members of their family were massacred in a cluster bomb strike. Their father, mother, siblings and all their close relatives. These two boys survived for a further two weeks until they also, succumbed to their terrible wounds.

Over 4,000 Saudi mercenaries, including 178 commanders, have been killed during the year-long Riyadh-led war against Yemen, a Yemeni intelligence source said on Thursday.

In a relevant development last week, the Qaher-I missile hit al-Khanjar military base in al-Jawf province, destroying their military hardware and equipment.

Yemen: The Endlessly Forgotten War.

Saudi-led Coalition Cluster Bombs

The Rain of Death for Yemeni Civilians

“An obligation never to use, produce, transfer or stockpile cluster munitions. It also includes several positive obligations to ensure no further use and to redress past harm caused by the weapons.”.

A cluster munitions, is an explosive device containing multiple explosive sub munitions. Like landmines, these sub munitions can remain a fatal threat to anyone in the area long after a conflict ends.

Decades after the initial bombing, these sub-munitions still have potential to claim lives, often surpassing even landmines in their threat to civilians.  Their continued use is met with almost universal abhorrence. The Convention on Cluster Munitions banning their use has 113 signatories.
Even countries that haven’t signed the treaty are still bound by customary international humanitarian law, specifically that:

“An indiscriminate weapon is a weapon that cannot be directed at a military objective or whose effects cannot be limited, and the use of such inherently’ indiscriminate weapon is prohibited. Rule 71

Cluster bombs are indiscriminate weapons that are imprecise at the time of use and leave behind submunitions that remain a threat for anyone in the area long after use. When the CBU-52B/Bs are used, it disintegrates in mid-air, depositing up to 220 bomblets at a time on an area roughly the size of a football field.

These weapons should never be used under any circumstances. Saudi Arabia and other coalition members – and the supplier, the US – are flouting the global standard that rejects cluster munitions because of their “long-term threat to civilians,” according to Human Rights Watch arms director Steve Goose.

“The use of cluster munitions in populated areas may amount to a war crime due to their indiscriminate nature,” the UN spokesperson pointed out.

 “The coalition’s repeated use of cluster bombs in the middle of a crowded city suggests an intent to harm civilians, which is a war crime.  These outrageous attacks show that the coalition seems less concerned than ever about sparing civilians from war’s horrors.”

More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure.


Since the beginning of the war on Yemen, Sheba Rights Coalition (SRC) has collected credible evidence that Saudi-led coalition used cluster bombs in air strikes on Yemen’s on 56 occasions.
Below are the attacks documented by Sheba Rights coalition:

• Sanaa (1 strike),
• Saada (34 strikes),
• Aden (1 strike),
• Hajjah (11 strikes),
• Taiz (6 strikes),
• Lahj (1 strike),
• Ibb (1 strike), and
• Marib (3 strikes).

1)SANAA

In the early morning hours of January 6, 2016 the Saudi-led coalition air-dropped cluster bombs in densely populated residential neighborhoods of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

The areas that were targeted were: Madbah, Sawad Hanash, Al-Sunaina, Hayel Street, Al-Rabat Street, Al-Ziraa zone, Kuwait Street, Tunis Street, the university zone, and Bir Al-Shaif neighborhood.  All the above mentioned areas are densely populated by civilians due to their close proximity to civil facilities such as schools, hospitals and universities.

Deaths and Injuries: A child was killed, and ten civilians injured in the attack.

Damage to Property and Infrastructure:  33 homes were damaged, 5 cars were burnt with 6 other cars damaged.  A girls school was also damaged in the attack.

Eyewitness Accounts:

Eyewitnesses reported hearing dozens of small explosions that were the result of the bomblets dispersed over their neighborhood by coalition jets.  In the morning, eye-witnesses confirmed what appeared to be the aftermath of the detonation of the bomblets with several buildings and cars in the neighborhood having been newly pockmarked by the shrapnel from the bomblets. Some eye-witness testimonies documented finding fragments of the bomblets in their cars and on the street.

1- Shaker Ghaleb Ahmed Shaker: A 25-year old resident on Al-Adel Street was critically injured when a cluster bomb penetrated through his bedroom roof, where he, his wife and his daughter were asleep.  The bomb exploded upon impact with the bedroom floor and shrapnel flew in all directions.  He sustained several shrapnel injuries to his chest, stomach and right arm.  He was rushed to the Republican hospital in critical condition after shrapnel from the bomb got lodged near his kidney, but was transferred to Al-Thawra hospital due to the lack of supplies at the Republican hospital, a result of the air, sea and land blockade imposed by the coalition on Yemen.

2- Mohammed Hamoud Shalaan al-Hashidy: The 30-year old guard of a girls school that was damaged in the strike reported that as he prepared to leave his house, located in the vicinity of the school, for the morning prayer, he heard jets overhead and soon after he saw the sky light up in a fiery red glow and what appeared to be small ball-sized bombs dispersing over a wide area of the neighborhood.
 Three of these bomblets fell on the school grounds causing loud explosions and sending shrapnel flying across the ground causing damage to windows, walls and the school’s water tanks.  

2)    HAJJAH

3)    SAADA

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