The number of civilians killed or injured in the war in Yemen has "
nearly doubled
" since the controversial ousting last October of UN experts responsible for investigating human rights violations, the NGO Norwegian Council for Human Rights said on Wednesday. refugees (NRC).
Read alsoYemen: fighting between loyalists and rebels on the Saudi border
The UN Human Rights Council had refused on October 7, 2021 to extend the mandate of these experts, NGOs accusing Saudi Arabia, which has been intervening in Yemen since 2015, of having done everything to obtain this rejection. .
"
The number of civilians killed or injured in Yemen has nearly doubled since the end of UN human rights investigations last October
," says NRC.
In the last four months of the UN experts' mandate, 823 civilians were injured or killed while in the four months following the end of the mandate, this figure rose to 1,535, according to the NGO which cites data of the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, an organization linked to the United Nations.
"
During the same period, 39 times more civilian casualties were caused by air strikes
," NRC said in a statement.
The conflict in Yemen has seen an upsurge in violence in recent months, with the Saudi-led military coalition stepping up airstrikes in support of government forces against the Houthis, rebels close to Iran.
At the same time, the Houthis have stepped up attacks in Yemen but also against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a pillar of the military coalition led by Riyadh.
Created in 2017, the UN group of experts had accused all the belligerents of having committed a "
multitude of war crimes
".
"
Cutting down this vital human rights investigative body has taken us back to horrific and out-of-control violations
," said Erin Hutchinson, NRC's director in Yemen.
In a telephone interview on Tuesday evening, US President Joe Biden stressed to King Salman of Saudi Arabia
the "commitment
" of the United States to support the kingdom against rebel attacks, according to the White House.
According to the UN, in seven years of conflict, at least 377,000 people have been killed, the vast majority due to the indirect consequences of the fighting, such as hunger and disease, in what is considered one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
