Yemeni Commission Documents over 3,411 Rights Violations in 2022

A member of a Yemeni mine disposal team works during an awareness campaign against the dangers of landmines and explosives, in the Khokha district of the Hodeidah province of Yemen, on December 21, 2022. (AFP)
A member of a Yemeni mine disposal team works during an awareness campaign against the dangers of landmines and explosives, in the Khokha district of the Hodeidah province of Yemen, on December 21, 2022. (AFP)
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Yemeni Commission Documents over 3,411 Rights Violations in 2022

A member of a Yemeni mine disposal team works during an awareness campaign against the dangers of landmines and explosives, in the Khokha district of the Hodeidah province of Yemen, on December 21, 2022. (AFP)
A member of a Yemeni mine disposal team works during an awareness campaign against the dangers of landmines and explosives, in the Khokha district of the Hodeidah province of Yemen, on December 21, 2022. (AFP)

The National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations to Human Rights (NCIAVHR) said Thursday it has documented and investigated 3,411 human rights violations across Yemen in 2022.

The violations include attacks on civilians, archaeological and religious sites, medical personnel and health facilities the destruction of private and public property, recruitment of minors and casualties from mine explosions.

In a press release, NCIAVHR said the violations affected 3,713 people from both genders and all ages.

It documented 940 attacks against civilians that left 1,412 deaths and injuries. It documented 447 deaths, including 35 women and 82 children. It confirmed 891 injuries, including 84 women and 212 children.

It confirmed 426 victims of mines and explosive devices. Of those victims, 23 were women and 106 were children.

It reported the arrest and disappearance of 968 people, targeted attacks against religious and archeological sites, 14 attacks against medical staff and facilities, and 1,092 attacks on private and public property. It documented 131 cases of child recruitment.

The Commission said it had completed investigations into the bombing of 52 houses, the forced displacement of 144 families and 87 cases of extrajudicial killings.

NCIAVHR added that the commission carried out 11 field visits to the governorates of Aden, Lahj, Taiz, Marib and Shabwa to investigate attacks on neighborhoods, residential areas and camps. They probed attacks on schools, medical facilities and farms. They toured contact lines and inspected the humanitarian situation on the ground.

The commission also carried out field visits to remote mountainous region in the Dhale, al-Jawf, al-Bayda, Hajjah, Saada and Hodeidah. They held direct interviews with victims of torture, lootings, arbitrary sacking and child recruitment in the Dhamar, al-Mahwit, Amran and Sanaa regions.

NCIAVHR called for probes into the human rights violations. It urged all warring parties to respect international humanitarian law. It called an end to arbitrary attacks and a halt to arbitrary arrests, kidnappings and looting. It called against imposing restrictions on women in engaging in social, political and public life.

It urged the international community to condemn the human rights violations committed in Yemen and to identify the parties responsible. It urged it to increase humanitarian aid to the war-torn country and help the legitimate government meet its commitments.



UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Races to Feed One Million Gazans after Truce

People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)
People walk past trucks loaded with aid waiting to cross into Gaza from the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on January 19, 2025. (AFP)

The UN's World Food Program said Sunday it was moving full throttle to get food to as many Gazans as possible after border crossings reopened as part of a long-awaited ceasefire deal.

"We're trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time," the WFP's Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told AFP, as the Rome-based UN agency's trucks began rolling into the strip.

"We're moving in with wheat flour, ready to eat meals, and we will be working all fronts trying to restock the bakeries," Skau said, adding the agency would attempt to provide nutritional supplements to the most malnourished.

An initial 42-day truce between Israel and Hamas is meant to enable a surge of sorely needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory after 15 months of war.

"The agreement is for 600 trucks a day... All the crossings will be open," Skau said.

The first WFP trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south and through the Zikim crossing in the north, the agency said in a statement, as it began trying to pull "the war-ravaged territory back from starvation".

"We have 150 trucks lined up for every day for the next at least 20 days," Skau said, adding that the WFP was "hopeful that the border crossings will be open and efficient".

There needs to be "an environment inside (Gaza) that is secure enough for our teams to move around," so that food "does not just get over the border but also gets into the hands of the people".

"It seems so far that things have been working relatively well.... We need to now sustain that over several days over weeks," he said.

Before the ceasefire came into effect, WFP was operating just five out of the 20 bakeries it partners with due to dwindling supplies of fuel and flour, as well as insecurity in northern Gaza.

"We're hoping that we will be up and running on all those bakeries as soon as possible," Skau said, stressing that it was "one of our top priorities" to get bread to "tens of thousands of people each day".

"It also has a psychological effect to be able to put warm bread into the hands of the people".

WFP also wants to "get the private sector and commercial goods in there as soon as possible," he said.

That would mean the UN agency could replace ready meals with vouchers and cash for people to buy their own food "to bring back some dignity" and allow them "frankly to start rebuilding their lives".

WFP said in a statement that it has enough food pre-positioned along the borders -- and on its way to Gaza -- to feed over a million people for three months.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year sparked the war.

The attack, the deadliest in Israel's history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 46,913 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.