Director of Mines Action Center: Catastrophic Damages by US-Saudi Cluster Bombs, in Yemen

The Director General of the Executive Center for Mine Action, Ali Safra, revealed today, Sunday, the statistics and damage of cluster bombs that were used in the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen. In a statement to Almasirah, Safra said that the center has accurate statistics and there are 8 types of cluster bombs that have been used in Yemen. They were made by the United States, Britain and Brazil.

He explained that there are 13 types of cluster bombs that do not carry any data for their manufacture, and they hit several areas, such as the ones that hit the draft farms in Hajjah Governorate.

He added that the statistics of cluster bombs discovered in separate areas of the republic amounted to 3179 cluster bombs. “Statistics of victims of cluster bombs reach more than 1,000, most of them women and children, and most of them are in agricultural and grazing areas,” he said.

The Director of the Executive Center for Mine Action confirmed that 9 governorates got most of the strikes of cluster bombs, inculdeing Saada, Hajjah, Sana’a, Hodeidah, Al Jawf, Amran, Al-Mahwit, Dhamar and Taiz. “According to international standards, 991 percent of cluster bombs are destroyed in place, and our center faces a major problem for several reasons,” he said, pointing out that a new type of these bombs is being dealt with and the United Nations has not provided us with the materials to destroy these catastrophic remnants.

He pointed out that the US-Saudi aggression prevented the entry of material helps in destroying remnants of cluster bombs in their place. “We seek, through the center’s work plans for the year 2021, to work in places that we have not been able to reach in the past years,” he added. He indicated that our statistics were not based on a comprehensive field survey, but rather from what we were able to reach in the targeted areas as a result of the continuing war.