NEW YORK CITY: The UN’s top human rights official told Arab News that the attacks by the Yemen-based Houthis on airports and other civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia raise the question of possible war crimes, while also condemning the Iran-backed militia’s detention of dozens of UN staff in Yemen.
A civilian airport can only be attacked if it is a legitimate military target under international humanitarian law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk. If one starts striking civilians, civilian infrastructure, it does raise questions of war crimes, indeed’, he said at a press event in New York Wednesday.
Turk said he was “very worried about the escalation that we see” and again flagged the 71 UN workers presently held by the Houthis, including eight from his own office. Some have been detained for years. This is completely unacceptable,” he said, describing the detentions as “the most egregious violation” of the rights and immunities granted to United Nations officials. They were held in very, very awful circumstances,” he said. “They should be released unconditionally and without delay.
Turk, in a statement earlier this month, decried a spate of Houthi attacks on airports in Saudi Arabia that have killed or maimed dozens of Saudi Saudis and other nationals, called for rigorous investigations into the strikes and that those guilty be held to account.
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