YEMAC: 10 civilians killed & injured in explosion of aggression’s remnants

Six citizens and four others were injured by the explosion of objects from the remnants of the US-Saudi aggression today and yesterday in the provinces of Marib and Amran.

The Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre (YEMAC), confirmed on Friday that six citizens, including two children, were killed and four others were injured by the explosion of objects left behind by the aggression remnants in Marib and Amran.

During the first half of 2023, the Centre had documented which amounted to150 martyr-wounded victims, which that statistic is not exhaustive.

The statement stated that since the start of the aggression on March 26, 2015, nine thousand and 500 victims were documented, including martyrs and wounded, most of whom fell as a result of the cluster bombs that were used excessively by the aggression coalition on a large scale in the Yemeni provinces.

The statement pointed out that in the face of the increasing number of victims, the Executive Center for Mine Action followed up with the United Nations and its agencies working in humanitarian work in the past years continuously and actively to introduce the center’s detectors to clear the Yemeni regions.

The center’s statement said, “There has been no response from the United Nations in providing the equipment until today, despite the widespread pollution that Yemen is witnessing, with the statement of the Director of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and her assertion in a press conference at Sana’a Airport during her visit to Yemen in December of last year that Yemen is considered the highest country in the world contaminated with mines, cluster bombs and remnants of war. UN reports also confirmed that Yemen ranks third in terms of the number of victims.”

The Mine Action Center called on the United Nations to play its humanitarian role in providing detectors and to continue supporting mine action instead of reducing support for its activities, which since the beginning of 2023 has reached 90 percent.

The statement confirmed that the United Nations had suspended all activities since the beginning of this July, despite the availability of funding and support, and stipulated that funding and support for the center’s activities be provided with conditions that violate international treaties, agreements and protocols, the Geneva Convention, and Yemeni laws and legislation.

The center indicated that these requirements were set in favor of the countries of the aggression coalition, which are primarily responsible for the excessive use of cluster bombs in Yemen, without regard for the lives of children and civilians in Yemen.

The statement also called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, civil society organizations and the media to do their duty towards the United Nations decision to stop mine-related activities in Yemen, as stipulated in Article VI of the Ottawa Convention.

The Executive Center for Mine Action affirmed that the United Nations bears the humanitarian and moral responsibility for the increasing number of victims, considering stopping humanitarian activities as a violation of the principles of impartiality, as stipulated in the Geneva Convention, the protocol, humanitarian laws, and the protection of civilians, whether during or after the war.