More than 2,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed in what is called ”the forgotten war” between Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab states, according to a new United Nations report. In addition to that bloody sectarian conflict, the US been carrying out a 13-year long campaign of drone airstrikes aimed at Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen, and in the year to July, 2015 the strikes killed as many as 40 civilians, including one child, the UN said.
As Vice News notes, that means the US military has killed more Yemeni civilians than the 24 civilian deaths that Al Qaeda itself has claimed credit for. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which operates out of Yemen, is seen as the most dangerous branch of the terrorist network, and a US drone strike killed AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi on June 9.
The report from the United Nations Human Rights Council comes as the UN’s head of human rights calls for an investigation into airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, as well as human rights violations by the rebels themselves. The UN says the coalition killed 941 civilians in May, June, and July of this year.