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u.s. airstrikes
US Strikes on Yemen Oil Port That Killed 84 Civilians Called 'Apparent War Crime'
Human Rights Watch said the April bombings, which also wounded more than 150 civilians, demonstrated "a callous disregard for civilian lives" and should be investigated.
Jun 04, 2025
The April bombing of a Yemeni oil port by U.S. forces that killed and wounded hundreds of civilians and disrupted the delivery of lifesaving aid to one of the world's most war-torn nations was "an apparent war crime" that should be investigated, a leading international human rights group said Wednesday.
On April 17, a series of U.S. airstrikes destroyed the Ras Isa oil Port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, killing 84 people and wounding more than 150 others, according to first responders, local officials, and a probe by the U.K.-based independent monitor Airwars.
The bombings were part of the Trump administration's response to resistance by Houthi rebels to Israel's annihilation of Gaza, which has included ballistic missile strikes targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping related to the key U.S. ally.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002."
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," U.S. Central Command said at the time, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
However, the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while workers were still on the job. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that of the strikes' victims, "49 were people who worked at the port, several were truck drivers, and two were civil defense personnel. Others may have been workers' family members. Three were identified as children."
"The list contained one person identified as a 'colonel,' but who was not necessarily a military member," HRW continued. "The Hodeidah branch of the government-owned Yemen Oil Company posted photographs of 49 employees they said were killed."
HRW Yemen and Bahrain researcher Niku Jafarnia said Wednesday that "the U.S. government's decision to strike Ras Isa Port, a critical entry point for aid in Yemen, while hundreds of workers were present demonstrates a callous disregard for civilians' lives."
"At a time when the majority of Yemenis don't have adequate access to food and water, the attack's impact on humanitarian aid could be enormous, particularly after Trump administration aid cutbacks," Jafarnia added.
U.S. airstrikes 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.
Other recent U.S. massacres in Yemen include a series of March 15 strikes on residential areas in the capital Sanaa that killed at least 53 people including numerous women and children, an April 20 strike on the Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood of the capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others, and the April 28 bombing of a detention center for African migrants in the city of Sa'ada that left at least 68 people dead and dozens more wounded.
These strikes came after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth loosened the U.S. military's rules of engagement to allow the bombing of a wider range of targets and people. In March, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed.
Hegseth—who has supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
The U.S has been bombing and conducting ground raids in Yemen since the beginning of the so-called War on Terror launched by the George W. Bush administration in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Airwars says hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed in 181 declared U.S. actions since 2002.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama announced that U.S. forces would provide "logistical and intelligence support" to the Saudi-led coalition intervening in the ongoing Yemeni civil war on behalf of the national government as it battled Iran-backed Houthi rebels. That assistance included refueling Saudi and Emirati warplanes that were bombing Yemeni targets and killing thousands of civilians while a blockade fueled famine and illness that claimed hundred of thousands of lives.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002 against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," HRW said Wednesday. "Those strikes continued until at least 2019 and killed many civilians, including 12 people attending a wedding in 2013. To Human Rights Watch's knowledge, the U.S. has never acknowledged or provided compensation for civilians harmed in this or other unlawful attacks."
The Pentagon has only acknowledged 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen since 2002. The Trump administration has been especially tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials including Hegseth discussed highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included.
"The recent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen are just the latest causing civilian harm in the country over the past two decades," Jafarnia said. "The Trump administration should reverse past U.S. practice and provide prompt compensation to those unlawfully harmed."
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Scores of Civilians Reportedly Among Victims of Latest US Airstrikes on Yemen
Strikes include Monday morning market bombing that killed at least 12 people and a Thursday attack on an oil port that left 80 dead.
Apr 21, 2025
Scores of civilians have reportedly been killed or wounded by U.S. airstrikes on Yemen—including at an oil port and market—since late last week as the Trump administration continues its monthlong intensification of strikes targeting Houthi rebels, who vowed to carry out more operations against enablers of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The Houthis said Monday that U.S. airstrikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa killed dozens, including a strike on the popular Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood that killed 12 people and wounded 30 others.
As the Houthis did not disclose victims' combatant status and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) refused to answer questions about civilians killed in the strikes, it is unclear how many noncombatants were among the dead and wounded. Video footage recorded in the strike's aftermath shows rescue workers uncovering the body of a small child found amid the rubble while a woman shrieks, "Let it be a dream!"
In what were likely the deadliest U.S. attacks on Yemen since U.S. President Donald Trumplaunched the current bombing campaign last month, at least 80 people including dozens of workers were killed and more than 150 others wounded in a series of Thursday airstrikes on the Ras Isa oil port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, according to the Hodeidah Health Office.
Al Jazeerareported that the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while people were still working. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
"They targeted a civilian side over there; as you can see, the casualties are all civilians who had worked at this facility," one first responder toldSky News as he gestured toward flaming ruins.
Officials also raised concerns over possible oil leaks into the Red Sea.
CENTCOM said Thursday that ships have continued to supply fuel to the Houthis via the port of Ras Isa—which is the terminus for Yemen's main oil pipeline—despite the group, whose official name is Ansar Allah, being designated a terrorist organization by the Trump administration in March.
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," CENTCOM said, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres "is gravely concerned about the airstrikes conducted by the United States over the course of April 17th and 18th in and around Yemen's port of Ras Isa, which reportedly resulted in scores of civilian casualties, including five humanitarian workers injured," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Saturday.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said Friday that "the use of heavy ordnance against a known civilian facility suggests a deliberate disregard for the risk of mass casualties, explaining the high death toll and raising serious suspicions of a blatant violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution under international humanitarian law."
"The targeted facility was civilian, and the civilian harm caused is grossly disproportionate to the declared military advantage of weakening the Houthis' economic base," the group added. "The use of force against such infrastructure, especially without clear necessity, inflicted severe harm on civilians and further debilitated Yemen's fuel import capabilities."
U.S. forces have been bombing Yemen since the administration of George W. Bush, who launched the open-ended War on Terror in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. There have also been occasional U.S. ground raids in Yemen, including one in January 2017 that killed Nawar al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old American girl whose father and brother were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes during the Obama administration.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The Pentagon only acknowledges 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen. The Trump administration has been particularly tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials shared highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included. Calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's resignation grew following Sunday's revelation that he shared Yemen war plans in a second Signal chat group that included his relatives and personal attorney.
On Saturday, Houthi spokesperson and senior political officer Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti vowed that "our military operations will continue as long as the genocide in Gaza persists and the siege on its people remains."
Since October 2023, Houthi forces have launched at least scores of mostly unsuccessful missile attacks on Israel-linked shipping, U.S. warships, and Israel itself in solidarity with Gaza.
Israel's 563-day war on Gaza, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case and is the impetus behind International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—has left more than 182,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
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US Accused of Killing Cuban Doctors in Somalia Airstrike
Cuban and American officials are investigating the unverified claim that the doctors, who were kidnapped by al-Shabaab militants in 2019, died during a recent U.S. drone strike.
Feb 21, 2024
The United States military said Tuesday that it is investigating whether a drone strike on Somalia targeting al-Shabaab fighters killed two Cuban doctors being held hostage by the militant group.
According to al-Shabaab, surgeon Landy Rodríguez Hernández and general medicine specialist Assel Herrera Correa were killed in a U.S. airstrike in Somalia's southern state of Jubaland last Thursday—although there has been no confirmation of the deaths.
"The aerial bombardment, which began at around 12:10 am, targeted a house in Jilib, instantly killing Assel Herrera and Landy Rodríguez," the al-Qaeda-affiliated group said on social media.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that National Assembly President Esteban Lazo Hernández traveled to Kenya "to make urgent efforts with the highest authorities of that country in the search for cooperation and clarification, in the light of the recent published news on the possible unconfirmed death" of the two doctors.
U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) acknowledged carrying out the February 15 bombing but said that "we do not have further information at this time about these reports, but we do take all claims of civilian casualties seriously. The command will continue to assess the results of this operation and will provide additional information as available."
According to Airwars, a U.K.-based monitoring group, hundreds of Somalis—including some civilians—were killed by U.S. airstrikes last year alone as the Biden administration quietly continues the so-called War on Terror launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The U.S. has been conducting airstrikes and ground raids in Somalia since the George W. Bush administration.
Al-Shabaab kidnapped the Cuban doctors in Mandera County, Kenya in April 2019. The doctors were working there under an agreement between the Kenyan and Cuban governments for the provision of medical professionals for services including the implemention of universal healthcare.
Cuba's socialist government provides universal healthcare to the Caribbean country's citizens and also deploys doctors to dozens of nations on humanitarian missions. While Cuban doctors are hailed around the world for their lifesaving service, they also allegedly face serious restrictions on their freedoms while working abroad.
Responding to news of the doctors' possible deaths, Cuban President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel y Bermúdez said: "I express all my solidarity and affection to the families of our doctors Assel and Landy, in these moments of uncertainty and increased pain, and in the face of the tragic news not yet confirmed, in whose clarification we are working hard with international authorities."
"I admire the strength of both families and I remember with great affection our previous meetings," he continued. "Assel and Landy represent the noble and generous spirit of a people who share even what they do not have, with the humble of the Earth."
"Cuba does not lose hope of finding them alive," Díaz Canel added. "We will do so as long as there is no official confirmation that they have died."
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