Investigators: Saudi Coalition Should Apologize for Bombing Yemen Hospital

Saudi Investigators Insist Other Attacks Were All 'Legitimate'

At the 2015 UN General Assembly agreed that Saudi Arabia should just investigate itself over the many war crimes they have committed in their war in Yemen. This led the Saudi coalition to create the “Joint Group to Assess Incidents,” which is offering a series of reports on a handful of the reports.

And while the Saudi coalition investigation of Saudi coalition crimes predictably determined that most of the crimes were “legitimate” attacks, they did manage to find some fault with a single incident, the August Saudi bombing of a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital.

While human rights groups have reported hundreds of incidents of Saudi warplanes killing civilians, a total of 15 have now been investigated. The investigators say that the bombing of the hospital was an “unintended mistake” and that the Saudi coalition should extend an apology for it.

MSF was harshly critical of the attack back in August, noting that they’d given the Saudis the exact location of the hospital specifically to avoid getting it blown up. They have not responded to the recommendation that they be apologized to.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.