MSF made a decision to withdraw staff from six Yemen hospitals after 19 people died in an air strike Monday on an MSF-supported hospital in Yemen’s rebel-held northern province of Hajja.
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MSF, repeatedly shared the coordinates of a hospital in Yemen with all parties in the conflict in the country prior to the medical facility being hit by a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on Monday, the organization said on its official Twitter account. The group accuses the Saudi-led force of carrying out “indiscriminate bombings”, and despite Saudi assurances the hospital strikes were mistakes and that the coalition would not violate worldwide law by targeting them, MSF officials say the evidence points otherwise.
MSF said that airstrikes continue endangering its facilities despite the fact it has “systematically shared the Global Positioning System coordinates of hospitals in which the organization works with the parties involved in the conflict”.
He further said: “In our discussions with the Saudi-led coalition, we have pressed the need to minimize civilian casualties”. Saleh Ali al-Sammad, the president of the Supreme Political Council, during his address of millions of demonstrators, said the rally suggested that he will be open-handed in forming the national unity government and to “fill the political vacuum and face the challenges of the present time in which our nation is grappling with a brutal aggression”.
From that headline, particularly the use of the present tense, you might assume that the USA is in the process of withdrawing its Yemen-related staff from Saudi Arabia, perhaps in response to the Saudi war crimes earlier this week.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asseri, declined to confirm details about the positioning of USA military personnel, but played down such moves.
Monday’s attack was the fourth and deadliest on MSF’s facilities in Yemen. Oxfam and CODEPINK, among others, launched a petition to “f$3 orce a public debate on USA participation in the Saudi war in Yemen by advocating for blocking the planned transfer of US tanks and armored vehicles to Saudi Arabia”, which as of Monday had collected 9,500 signatures.
The coalition of Arab states, which is backed by the US, intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to help battle Shiite Muslim rebels who had forced the president into exile.
This places the blame squarely on the Saudi-led Coalition for dozens of unlawful airstrikes in civilian areas documented by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. On Saturday, Doctors Without Borders reported that an airstrike on a school in northern Yemen killed 10 children and wounded 28 others.
It also accused all sides in Yemen’s war of “indiscriminate attacks” on civilians.
Since the SLC intervened in Yemen conflict in March 2015, allied air strikes and fighting on the ground have killed over 6,400 persons, mostly civilians.
The war in Yemen has left a security vacuum throughout parts of the country.
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But McConnaughey said the U.S. reassignment of personnel does not affect their ability to support the Saudis and is a more efficient allocation of resources.
