Rights Report: Impunity Encourages The Houthis To Escalate Their Maritime Attacks
Yemen Monitor/Newsroom:
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms condemned on Saturday the attack carried out by the Houthi group on a commercial ship belonging to a Saudi company while sailing in the Red Sea, considering it a serious threat to the safety of maritime navigation, international trade, and regional and international security.
The network said in a statement that targeting commercial and civilian ships as well as navigation routes in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait comes within a “repetitive pattern” of attacks carried out by the Houthi group, aimed at expanding the scope of conflict to international sea lanes, thereby threatening one of the most vital arteries of global trade, supply chains, and energy transport.
It emphasized that commercial ships and their crews must not be targets for armed attacks or a means of political and military leverage, stressing the need to conduct a serious investigation into the attack, determine responsibilities, and hold accountable everyone proven involved in planning, executing, financing, or facilitating it, in accordance with international law.
The network deemed that the attack represents an extension of a long record of violations attributed to the Houthis, starting from targeting civilians inside Yemen, passing through arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and child recruitment, leading up to threatening commercial ships and international sea lanes.
It added that any political justifications or slogans put forward by the group do not grant it legal cover, nor do they exempt its leaders and supporters from responsibility for endangering the lives of civilians and mariners and threatening international navigation freedom.
The network warned that the continuation of what it described as a state of impunity and the failure to take deterrent international measures would encourage the Houthis to continue escalating, threatening to turn the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab into a permanent hotspot threatening maritime security and global trade.
It called on the United Nations, the Security Council, and the international community to move from statements of condemnation to taking practical measures to protect commercial and civilian ships and the freedom of navigation, investigate the attacks, hold those responsible accountable, prevent the arrival of weapons and technologies used to threaten maritime navigation, and dry up the funding sources for these operations.
The network concluded its statement by affirming that protecting the lives of civilians and mariners, and safeguarding the security of the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab as well as the freedom of international navigation and trade, represent a collective responsibility that requires a unified and decisive international stance to ensure the perpetrators of these attacks and their supporters are held accountable, and to maintain the security and stability of Yemen, the region, and the world.
