The remnants of a US GBU-39 bomb were found at the location of a US airstrike on a migrant facility in Saada in northwestern Yemen, Drop Site News reported on Thursday.
According to Yemeni media, the US strikes on the facility killed 68 people, and all the casualties appear to have been African migrants who were detainees at the facility.
In response to the reports of major civilian casualties in the strikes, a Pentagon official said Monday that the US was “currently conducting our battle-damage assessment and inquiry into those claims,” but so far, there have been no further comments from the US military.
A Yemen-based Ethiopian activist who spoke with survivors of the attack told Drop Site that the detention center was hit by three separate strikes in slow succession. Trevor Ball, a munitions expert and former US Army ordnance specialist, said the facility was likely targeted intentionally since GBU-39 bombs are precise weapons, and it was struck multiple times.
US-made GBU-39 bombs have been used frequently by the Israeli military in attacks on Gaza, including in strikes on tents. Ball said the remnants of the GBU-39 at the migrant center appear to be the first evidence of the US using the bomb in Yemen.
The same migrant facility was targeted by Saudi Arabia in 2022 in a strike that killed 91 civilians, according to the Yemen Data Project, which means the US should have been aware that attacking the detention center would have caused significant civilian casualties.
Since the Trump administration launched its bombing campaign in Yemen on March 15, the US military has struck over 1,000 targets in the country. The Pentagon has shared virtually no details about the airstrikes, which have killed more than 200 civilians.
