Amnesty Urges War Crimes Probe Into US Bombing of Yemen Migrant Jail

The human rights group Amnesty International on Monday called for an investigation of an April U.S. airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen that killed and wounded more than 100 people as part of a wider bombing campaign targeting Houthi rebels that has left hundreds of people dead.

The U.S.—which has been bombing Yemen since 2002 as part of the so-called War on Terror launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks—intensified strikes in March 2025 in response to Houthi resistance to Israel's annihilation of Gaza and countries who support it. U.S. airstrtikes on Yemen, which averaged around a dozen per month during the final year of the Biden administration, soared to more than 60 in March under President Donald Trump, according to the Yemen Data Project.

"Under international humanitarian law attacking forces have an obligation to do everything feasible to distinguish between military and civilian targets."

On April 28, U.S. forces bombed the detention center for African migrants in the city of Sa'ada. People familiar with the site told Amnesty that all but one of the migrants jailed at the facility at the time of the attack were Ethiopians, except for one Eritrean. One person told Amnesty that they spoke to survivors of the strike, who said that detainees were sleeping when the center was bombed at around 4:00 am local time.

"They said they woke up to find dismembered bodies around them," the person recounted. "You could see the shock and horror on their faces. Some were still unable to speak because of the trauma."

Another witness said victims "suffered from different fractures and bruises," with some "in critical condition... two had amputated legs."

According to Amnesty:

Under international humanitarian law attacking forces have an obligation to do everything feasible to distinguish between military and civilian targets, to verify whether their intended target is a military objective and to cancel an attack if there is doubt. When attacking a military objective, parties to a conflict must also take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians in the vicinity.

"The U.S. attacked a well-known detention facility where the Houthis have been detaining migrants who had no means to take shelter. The major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the U.S. complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law, including the rules on distinction and precautions," Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said Monday.

"The U.S. must conduct a prompt, independent, and transparent investigation into this airstrike and into any other airstrikes that have resulted in civilian casualties as well as those where the rules of international humanitarian law may have been violated," Callamard added.

Other recent U.S. massacres in Yemen include the April 17 bombing of the Ras Isa fuel terminal in the Hodeida region, which Houthi officials said killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 170 others, and the April 20 strike on the popular Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood of the capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others.

"At a time when the U.S. appears to be shrinking efforts aimed at reducing civilian harm by U.S. lethal actions, the U.S. Congress should play its oversight role and demand information on investigations to date on these strikes," Callamard said. "Congress must further ensure that civilian harm mitigation and response mechanisms remain intact and robustly respond to this and other recent incidents."