US-made bomb used in deadly Yemen airstrike that killed civilians

It is the latest evidence in allegations pointing to US involvement in the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen. 

The laser-guided precision weapon was made by US company Rytheon and its use amounts to serious violations of international humanitarian law.

"It is unfathomable and unconscionable that the USA continues to feed the conveyor belt of arms flowing into Yemen’s devastating conflict," said Rasha Mohamed, Amnesty International’s Yemen Researcher.

"Despite the slew of evidence that the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition has time and again committed serious violations of international law, including possible war crimes, the USA and other arms-supplying countries such as the UK and France remain unmoved by the pain and chaos their arms are wreaking on the civilian population."

Among the six civilians killed in the attack were a 52-year-old woman and three children, aged 12, nine and six.

One family member told Amnesty International: “We buried them the same day because they had turned into severed limbs. There were no corpses left to examine. They were wrapped up [with blankets] and taken away.”

One eyewitness told Amnesty International: “I was around three minutes’ walk away working at a neighbouring farm. I heard the plane hovering and I saw the bomb as it dropped towards the house. I was next to the house when the second bomb fell… and I got down onto the ground.”

Under international humanitarian law it is unlawful to target civilians as part of military operations, and the closest military target to the victims’ home had stopped operating two years prior, according to Amnesty International. 

Since March 2015, Amnesty’s researchers have investigated dozens of airstrikes and repeatedly found and identified remnants of US-manufactured munitions.

The conflict in Yemen has been branded as the most severe humanitarian crisis by United Nations officials, and has seen a repeated violation of human rights from both sides.