Key points
The war in Yemen has killed over 100,000 people as a direct result of military action. The death toll includes more than 12,000 civilians. Two thirds of these deaths were caused by air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition.
Air raids have frequently targeted civilian gatherings such as weddings and busy market places where there was no military target nearby, often with extremely deadly consequences. Many of these air raids appear to be clear violations of International Humanitarian Law.
Despite UK government claims that it provides training to the Coalition to avoid civilian casualties, there is no sign that this has reduced the deadly toll of the air raids. UK-manufactured weapons have been tied to individual attacks violating International Humanitarian Law.
- These numbers do not include those who have died of hunger and disease as a result of the devastating humanitarian crisis caused by the war and the Coalition’s air and naval blockade of Yemen.
A devastating human toll
The war in Yemen has killed over 100,000 people as a direct result of military action, from March 2015 (when Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies joined the war), until June 2019, according to data from the Yemen Data Project and ACLED, the Armed Conflict Locations and Events Data project.
This death toll includes more than 12,000 civilians. Two thirds of these deaths, from over 4,900 separate incidents, were caused by air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition.
Others were killed by landmines or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), artillery shelling, suicide bombings, shootings, and other armed violence against civilians, in attacks committed by all sides. Many more civilians, not included in the above figures, have also been killed in attacks on military targets – so-called “collateral damage”.