The Saudi Arabian-led coalition has launched air strikes against civilian objects, such as homes, schools, markets and mosques, even though no fighters or military targets were located nearby.
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The United Nations says around 5,000 people have been killed and 25,000 wounded, many of them civilians, since late March in Yemen.
The Sunni militant group uses that term to describe Shi’ite Muslims it deems to be heretics.
More than 2,100 civilians have been killed, including some 400 children, during the conflict, while more than 1.4 million people have been displaced.
Now the war between the Shia rebels, known as Houthis, and the forces loyal to exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the involvement of the Arab coalition resulted in a major humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.
In June, President Barack Obama changed existing procedures to deal with hostage-takings, following criticism of U.S. policy spearheaded by the family of journalist James Foley who was murdered past year by Islamic State group jihadists in Syria. The Hadi forces have the support of the Arab-coalition led by Saudi Arabia which accuses Iran of supporting the Houthis. All these attacks are serious violations of global humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.
“Coalition forces have also used banned cluster munitions, which are indiscriminate by nature, and have been found to be produced or designed in the United States of America”, Amnesty said.
The rights group also said that “grave human rights abuses and violations of global humanitarian law” have been committed by the Houthis and their opponents.
Philippe Dam, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director in Geneva, praised the “important demonstration of principled leadership” by the Netherlands and said Arab states like Saudi Arabia appear “determined to avoid any scrutiny” of the war in Yemen.
“They have also carried out dozens of arbitrary arrests, detentions and abductions of activists, journalists and others perceived as critics”, Amnesty said.
This week, Saudi Arabia was selected to head the UN Human Rights Council, a position which gives it considerable sway over officials shaping human rights investigations and reports.
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Yemen’s fighting pits the rebels, known as Houthis, and their allies against the Saudi-backed and internationally recognized government forces.
