HRC condemns Saudi aggression against Taiz Market, civilian objects across several governorates

The Yemeni Center for Human Rights has condemned the Saudi aggression and its escalation involving the bombing of markets, schools, and civilian objects across several governorates. Most recently, airstrikes targeted commercial shops in the central market of Taiz, specifically at Mawiyah Junction in Al-Ta’iziyah district, resulting in deaths and injuries, including among children.

In a statement received by the Yemeni News Agency (Saba), the Center affirmed that targeting a market crowded with civilians, as well as commercial and civil service facilities, constitutes a full-fledged war crime, a crime against humanity, and an explicit act of aggression. It represents a blatant defiance of all international laws and regulations.

The Center explained that the direct targeting of areas where civilians congregate cannot be justified or overlooked. Such actions flagrantly violate the fundamental principles of International Humanitarian Law—specifically the 1977 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols—which categorically prohibit the direct targeting of civilian objects and populated areas, and criminalize indiscriminate attacks that cause severe harm to lives and civilian property.

The statement emphasized that this heinous crime—along with the series of systematic crimes committed since the escalation of the Saudi aggression against Yemen—constitutes a gross violation of basic human rights. These crimes are not subject to a statute of limitations under international law and relevant conventions; the perpetrators, those who ordered the attacks, and those who funded them will remain liable for international criminal prosecution and accountability, regardless of the passage of time. The Center called upon the UN Security Council and the United Nations to take urgent, immediate action to fulfill their legal, ethical, and humanitarian responsibilities to halt these ongoing crimes and attacks against the Yemeni people, and to break the shameful silence, willful blindness, and appeasement that amount to direct complicity in the aggression against Yemen.

It also called for an immediate end to the provision of support and the shielding of the flagrant violations committed by the states of the aggression coalition, and for adherence to the obligations set forth in the UN Charter regarding the maintenance of international peace and security.

Furthermore, the Center urged human rights organizations, international bodies, and free people worldwide to condemn the Saudi aggression and its crimes in Yemen, to mobilize public and legal pressure to prosecute the leaders of the aggression in national and international courts, and to ensure that the perpetrators of these violations and crimes do not escape punishment. It also called for the imposition of a comprehensive, immediate embargo on the supply and transfer of arms and military technology to the aggressor state to prevent their use in committing further massacres against children, women, and civilians.