Saudi-Led Coalition 'Deliberately' Targeting Hospitals in Yemen: ICRC

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/11/saudi-led-coalition-deliberately-targeting-hospitals-yemen-icrc

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen has repeatedly targeted and attacked hospitals and clinics, an appalling trend that "disrespects the neutrality of health facilities" in war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday.

The U.S.-backed coalition has bombed nearly 100 hospitals throughout Yemen since March, with the most recent airstrike hitting a clinic on Sunday in the southern city of Taiz—one the country's most populous regions, which has been under heavy fire for months. The shelling of Al-Thawra hospital in the south came just weeks after a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic was hit in Haydan, in the north.

"Al-Thawra hospital, one of the main health care facilities in Taiz which is providing treatment for about 50 injured people every day was reportedly shelled several times on Sunday. The shelling endangered the lives of patients and staff on site," Kedir Awol Omar, the deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, said on Tuesday. "The neutrality of healthcare facilities and staff is not being respected. Health facilities are deliberately attacked and surgical and medical supplies are also being blocked from reaching hospitals in areas under siege."

Airstrikes on medical clinics are "a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law," ICRC said.MSF also said on Tuesday that it has been unable to deliver essential medical aid to two hospitals stationed in a particular volatile corner of Taiz, where almost half of health facilities face an influx of wounded patients along with a scarcity in supplies.

[think]

1. "The U.S.-backed coalition has bombed nearly 100 hospitals throughout Yemen"

[eridani]

2. There is plenty wrong with Iran's government, but Iran has never done anything like this n/t

[malaise]

3. Rules of war only apply to those who take on the West

All war crimes are irrelevant during the Western crusade.