The month of October saw the highest rate of civilian casualties caused by US-backed Saudi airstrikes in Yemen since December 17, according to a report from the Yemen Data Project (YDP), as the bombing campaign has dramatically escalated in the months since Riyadh reignited the war by bombing the Sanaa International Airport in July.
The YDP found that Saudi airstrikes killed at least 140 civilians and wounded 286. The death toll includes 40 children, and 60 children were also wounded, as many of the strikes hit civilian homes and massacred families.
The report said that October marked the worst month for child harm in Saudi bombings since August 2018, when a Saudi strike hit a school bus in the Saada province of northern Yemen, killing at least 40 children, a strike that was carried out with a US-supplied bomb.
The YDP said that Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province was the most heavily bombed and saw the most civilian casualties in October, but the single worst incident of civilian harm and child death occurred in Saada on October 18, when a Saudi strike hit a home, killing at least 10 civilians, including seven children. Another 23 civilians were recorded as injured, including eight women and 12 children.
The YDP’s previous report found that at least 66 civilians were killed by Saudi airstrikes in September, when the war significantly escalated as Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, made lightning gains in a ground offensive against Saudi-backed forces. The YDP’s numbers are slightly lower than civilian death tolls released by the Health Ministry in the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government, but their figures also appear to include civilian casualties in attacks launched by Saudi-backed forces on the ground.
While Saudi Arabia is conducting a heavy bombing campaign in Yemen and is killing a lot of people, the strikes have done nothing to roll back the Ansar Allah gains. Saudi Arabia also continues to face heavy Ansar Allah attacks on its airports and oil infrastructure, and appears to be looking for a way out of the war.
The Saudi bombing campaign is strongly backed by the US, which has up to 200 military advisors deployed in Saudi Arabia to provide intelligence and targeting support. The US has also resumed refueling Saudi warplanes, a form of support that was cut off back in 2018.
